


About Life

by Fallen_Ark_Angel



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2019-06-18 11:49:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 68,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15485106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallen_Ark_Angel/pseuds/Fallen_Ark_Angel
Summary: Concern over your own life and the inevitable demise of it is something Laxus is rather familiar with. Now faced with the creation of another, he has much more to consider than just his own feelings and goals.





	1. Prologue

Laxus had always liked Mirajane.

In a, "Hey, we're both super strong and should just stay the hell away from one another," kinda way. Not to say he didn't tease her at times, back before her sister...but Laxus teased everyone. And when Lisanna did die, he certainly left her alone, for a good gestation period of, what? A year?

Still, random ribbing was nothing compared to the torment he saw fit to inflict on many others throughout the course of his rebellious teen years. A lot of this had to do with Mira's apparent understanding of their arrangement. She had her little bitch fest of a hate/hate more relationship with Erza and, therefore, saw Laxus of little interest.

Perhaps, even, she feared him a bit, if only because of his size over her and the other children in the hall's obvious weary attitudes towards the nearly grown man. He was much bigger than Mirajane and though her power was growing at an exponential rate back in those days, he still seemed far more imposing.

Their interactions were limited and fleeting and it was best kept that way.

It wasn't until his excommunication and subsequent return that Laxus really gave her any real consideration. And even then, it was merely because he felt...happy for her. Honestly. The second he saw Lisanna there, stupid little Lisanna, all grown up, he didn't know...what had happened, but he knew it was something. And fine, he wasn't much one for emotions or caring about others, but he did understand loss.

Damn, if Laxus' didn't understand loss.

And if he could get back even just one of the family members that had been taken from him…

To see it happen to someone else, someone so deserving, that took care of the only member of said family still living for him while he was out finding himself, made Laxus feel…

Good.

Seeing Mirajane get a second chance with Lisanna made Laxus feel good.

She was happy to see him too, of course, find his own happiness. Perhaps not in what he'd always coveted, but in other ways. If Erza was the keeper of the troops, Mirajane was very good at holding things down at home base. Considering their home base was a bar, she got to see the members interact in many instances. It was drastic, really, the way Laxus went from sitting up on his lonely upper deck of the hall to actually having a beer or two with them, in that tiny one they were using before being gifted back their guildhall by the township Magnolia.

They'd both matured, perhaps her a bit before he, but was that not typical of boys and girls? They'd watched one another shed their hawkish behaviors for more suitable attributes that the elders of a guild should have. The temporary truce of their youth had blossomed ever slowly into an intense respect both held for one another.

Laxus saw Mirajane as a worthy member of the guildhall and she'd seen him grow into a fine gentleman, poised to perhaps one day lead said guildhall.

With that being said, the familiarity with one another was hardly mistaken as friendship. Perhaps more than affable but certainly nothing verging on two people who truly knew one another. Occasionally, when he'd see her around the hall or Magnolia, it'd hit Laxus that the two them, why, out of everyone, they could have truly friends, back in the day. Her damaged persona would have meshed so well with the one he sported that it was almost a shame, really, that those years had been wasted in contempt rather than camaraderie.

But life was busy and, truly, neither was at a loss for company. Atop her siblings, Mirajane was considered by many the friendliest of the Fairy Tail 'inner circle' while Laxus was no longer just the devotion sought by the Thunder Legion, but truly closer to their big brother then more than ever.

There was no need, honestly, for Raijin and Satan to converse outside of the typical guild garb.

Which is why it shocked him so much when Mirajane approached him one day at the hall. He had it poised on his tongue, to tell her that he didn't require a refill, he'd be heading out soon enough, that she shocked him when she asked something else entirely.

"Hey, Laxus, can you stick around after closing? I need to talk to you about something pretty important."

This shocked the slayer into silence as Mirajane only filled his beer up with the pitcher in her hand without asking, and picked up the empty plate in front of Freed, who was seated with him, not even waiting for an answer. She'd spoken so fast and it was so noisy in the place that Laxus was almost convinced that he'd misheard her, but there was no way that Freed felt the same.

"Why," he asked as Laxus only blinked, "would Mirajane wish to speak with you? And about what?"

"Dunno," the slayer muttered as his eyes followed the mage as she made her way across the hall, far away from him. Scampering off, honestly. "I haven't even spoken to Mira outside of ordering drinks in… Fuck, has it been a year?"

"I speak with her, occasionally," Freed remarked, glancing after her also. "Perhaps she's confusing you with me."

"I highly doubt," Laxus grumbled as, slowly, he moved to take a sip from the beer he hadn't honestly even wanted refilled, "that anyone has ever made that mistake."

Freed coughed a bit uncomfortably before looking off and agreeing, "Yes, of course, Laxus. Forgive me."

But he was hardly listening to the other man then as he continued to ponder just what waiting around for closing would get him.

Because he definitely was doing it.

What sorta choice did he have? She hardly even gave him one, just walking away like that.

The evening was fast approaching though and Laxus had nothing to do, truly, that night, so it wasn't really a true inconvenience. Plus, though he'd never let on, Laxus interest was piqued. Mirajane wasn't one to ask for help often and certainly not from someone she hardly considered a friend.

"I could stay with you," Freed offered to the man, as the time grew closer. "If you wish."

"Why would I wish that? What? You think the woman's gonna jump me or something?"

"N-No, but-"

"She probably just has some sort of late night delivery coming," the man remarked. "Needs some help lifting them."

"But wouldn't ask her brother because-"

"Damn, Freed, I don't know. I'm just thinking."

"R-Right, sorry."

It took a bit for the place to clear out and Mirajane came up to him to request they wait until then to speak.

Kinana was still around, cleaning up around the bar area, when Mirajane came and drug Laxus off to the enclosed pool where they could speak in private.

"So," Laxus said slowly as they stood there, only the sounds of the pool's filters and drains making any noise, "what exactly is it that you-"

"Do you ever come to the pool?" Mira, who had been facing him, turned then and began to walk around the perimeter of it slowly. Laxus didn't move to follow. "I don't ever see you in it."

"Not my thing," he said simply. "What was it that you-"

"Not mine either. I guess when you have to clean it all the time, you kinda don't wanna get in it, you know?"

"Don't shit where you eat."

"What?"

"Mira, what did you want from me?"

She was still walking the length of the pool and glanced over her shoulder at him, their eyes locking across the tile flooring before, with a breath, she looked forward again.

"You know we're getting older, right, Laxus?"

"Older?" He snorted, not even considering what she could possibly be speaking on. "I'm in my prime."

"Don't you turn thirty in a couple of months?"

"Prime."

"And without Master Mavis freezing time that time-"

"What do you want, Mirajane?"

"I just...I don't care, you know? If I'm a barmaid for the rest of forever."

He'd taken to crossing his arms, when she began picking at his age, but let out a slight breath when she said this.

"Do you think I...what? Said something about it? As if you did or something? Because I didn't, if that's what you think. I don't care if you're a...barmaid or what you are-"

"Thanks, but I really didn't care about what you thought about the situation."

"Then-"

"I just… Can you just listen? Like quietly?"

"You make me wait hours past when I wanted to leave to have a conversation you won't key me in on what's about, but-"

"Please, Laxus."

His eyes rolled quite heavily, but Mirajane only waited for his slight grumbles to die down before speaking again. By that point, she was coming back towards him, on her journey around the pool, and he stared straight at her face.

"I just always thought that I'd, you know, have, like, already started my life by now."

"You're only, what? Twenty something? You-"

"You'd say you'd be quiet."

Actually, he didn't say anything, but whatever.

"My parents died, you know? Super young. After working their entire lives, just so that they could have me and my brother and sister. And I don't… I always thought I'd have tons of kids by now."

"Tons?"

"One or two. Three."

"Huh."

"At least, like, a steady boyfriend or something, you know? But I always end up dating guys that aren't, you know, into that. And that's fine, I don't care, but-"

"M-Mirajane," he muttered, scratching at the back of his neck as he finally looked away from her. "Why are you telling me all this? Because, not to be rude or whatever, but I really...don't give a shit. I can try to, I guess, but this is-"

"I wanna ask you something."

"To what? Hook you up with guys or something? Because, I don't know if you noticed, but assholes kinda attract assholes."

"What?"

"So," he kept right up, "you should ask someone else and just-"

"That's not even what I'm asking."

"Then what are you asking?"

She'd made it back to him then and, apparently, the walk around the pool at eased her nerves a bit, as she stood directly in front of him, her deep blues locking with his dark irises.

"Laxus, this is really personal and serious and if you don't want to, fine, but please don't go around and tell people that I asked-"

"What?" He was growing annoyed. "Mira? It's late."

"I know, but..."

"Just spit it out."

It was silent though, the pool still making all of its noises, as well as the sound of Kinana calling out to Mirajane that she'd closed out the register and was heading home; she'd see her in the morning. The loud, reverberating bang of the thick, wooden doors at the entrance to the hall as the other barmaid finally escaped the guild for the day.

Mirajane's eyes shut and she took a deep breath while Laxus only continued to stare, watching, waiting.

Wondering if maybe the woman had taken him out to the pool to do some sort of surprise attack and murder him and Freed had been right.

Then, eyes opening slowly, Mirajane whispered, "I wanted to know if you'd be the father of my baby."

And that's how Laxus found out that you should never, ever be nice to other people.

Ever.

They might not kill you when you least expect it, but they'll definitely try to get you to have a heart attack.

"Laxus, are you okay?"

Or cause you to faint.

Heh.

  


 


	2. Overture

"It's not too late, you know."

"Too late for what, Lisanna?" Mirajane hardly glanced at the other woman as she stood in the tiny bathroom of the Strauss household, applying her makeup carefully. Typically she wasn't so concerned about precision, but that specific evening, she felt as if every inch of her would be judged and therefore required perfection. "To just stand him up?"

Her younger sister was standing in the hall, arms folded over her chest, looking far less giddy than she typically would be, when her sister was headed out for the evening. Lisanna saw Mirajane and her dating life as some sort of enigma that, while she'd never live herself, was quite entertaining to live vicariously through.

But not that day.

Not at all.

"To go and tell him that you don't want to do this," she corrected her sister with a shake of her head. "I mean, you can still eat this snazzy dinner he's taking you out on, but-"

"Lisanna."

"I mean, steak is probably out, but he'd definitely buy a fish entree, I'm sure."

"Would you just leave me alone?"

"You still have to, like, put out probably, but chicken definitely."

"For someone that was so thrilled when I mentioned to them that I was thinking about having a baby-"

"Well, yeah," Lisanna said with a bit of a frown. "Of course I was. Before you told me that you were going to ask...Laxus to be the father. Gross."

"You like Laxus."

"I like Laxus a lot!" she agreed. "That's the problem. You're gonna make things weird with him and-"

"Well, we're already too late for that, so we might as well go through with it."

"Mira-"

"Laxus and I are both adults, Lisanna," she told the younger woman with a shake of her head though her eyes stayed focused on the mirror before her. "Very, very mature adults."

Only, they didn't feel too much like adults a few days ago when Laxus laid splayed out on the tile flooring surrounding the pool following a certain little proposition, much to the dismay of Mirajane who only stood over him in shock for a moment.

"Oh no, Laxus, are you okay? Laxus?" Bending over him, she tapped gently at his cheek, but he didn't move in the slightest. Not sure what to do, Mira's hand came up to cover her mouth as she glanced around. Eyes falling across the room, she rushed over to where a bucket sat. Quickly moving over to the pool, she dipped the bucket in before going to throw the water over the fainted man.

"What the fu- Mira!"

"I'm sorry! I had to wake you up! I didn't know how else to do it! You hit your head and I just… I'm sorry!"

Laxus' body didn't react well to her throwing cool pool water over it. At all. He was coughing as he sat up, dazed and confused. All he knew in that moment was that he'd just woken up to what looked like through his chlorine stained eyes Mirajane tossing water all over his face.

Rubbing at his eyes, the slayer only growled, "And you couldn't think of a better way to-"

"To asked you?" she interjected hand still up to her face as she stood over her. Mira's nerves were shot at that point and, completely at a loss for where to go next, she began to ramble. "I don't, Laxus. I really thought about this for a long time. It wasn't just something that came to me one night and don't, like, read anything into it. I'm not, like, secretly in love with you. Not that I never could be either! But I'm not. It's not you. You're...you. And I just...I'm me and-"

"I meant," came from the man's mouth as he scrubbed at his eyes, it coming back to him then with a sinking stomach just what Mira had asked of him, "could you not think of a better way to get me to come to? Or maybe just, jeez, wait for me to on my own?"

"I didn't… Are you alright?"

"My eyes aren't, no, but-"

"Let me go get you a towel," she cut him off then. "Alright? Just hold on a second."

"I don't need a damn towel, I need all new clothes!"

"I said I'm sorry, Laxus."

"Yeah, well, sorry's not good enough! I liked this damn shirt and now you've ruined-"

"Just...stop it! It wasn't supposed to go like-"

"You stop it!" Laxus was popping back up then, eyes now red and stinging, clothes dripping with water. "Damn it, Mirajane, who the fuck just comes up to someone they hardly know-'

"I do know you."

"No! You don't! You know that we both go to the same guild and who my family is. We've held, in total, a what? Thirty minutes worth of conversation in over a decade. I could be carrying fucking diseases, you know? And if I was some dick of a guy, I could agree and… I dunno! Does that shit pass to a baby? Use that damn head of yours sometime, you- No. No. You don't get to cry right now. You-'

"You can't tell me what to do, you big jerk!"

"How am I the jerk? At all?'

'You could have just said no. You didn't have to-'

"Not try to stop you from just coming up to random guys and-'

"This wasn't random!"

"Well, it sure as hell feels like it."

He'd gotten to his feet by that point and the pair glared at one another, Mira through tear stained eyes and Laxus through bloodshot ones. With a bit sniffle, she turned her back to him.

"Just go then," she said, back to him. "Just leave."

It was silent behind her for a moment before, grumbling under his breath, Laxus began to walk off. Which, in any other situation, would have been hilarious because the water was dripping down into his boots, where it began to slosh around and make wet smacking noises as his feet rose and fell.

But it was the moment that it was and there was nothing funny about what had just happened.

Nothing at all.

Mirajane honestly didn't even want to go into work the next day. It wasn't so much that she thought that the man would tell anyone about what she'd proposed (she didn't think he was that kind of person, honestly; plus, the only person she could imagine him doing so to would be Freed and, well, it's not like he'd ever rag on her about it), but rather just the thought of having to possibly see him was...well…

It was a mixture of things.

For one, she thought he'd been an ass. For another, she'd also was afraid the chlorine had ruined his shirt somehow and, if that were the case, after things calmed down some between them, she'd certainly be replacing it (though she thought he was being a bit dramatic with the statement, as she'd never known this to happen).

Mostly though, Mirajane was just embarrassed. Once more, she'd romanticized something to the point of lunacy. In what world would anyone take it any better than Laxus had? And honestly, he did bring up some good points that she'd never once thought about. Not to mention, if he had been excited about the idea, right off the bat, wouldn't that have said something much worse? If not down right creepy?

Mira honestly thought that Laxus would feel an equal desire to keep away from one another and that she wouldn't see him for a good while. Maybe a few weeks. It wouldn't be unusual for the man to disappear for months at a time, if not a full year, so him ducking out directly after their conversation could even be skewed, in her mind, as having nothing to do with her.

Believe her, Mira could make herself believe it was true.

Relief was an understatement when describing how she felt when, nearing five and the beginning of the dinner hour, Laxus still hadn't shown his face. She'd seen his usual cohorts, all separately, doing their own things (Freed came early that morning for his typical solo job following a Thunder Legion one, Evergreen was pretending not to have lunch with Elfman around noon, and Bickslow filtered around with his dolls, annoying mostly everyone, throughout the day), but their ever inscrutable idol was absent up till that point.

It would also be an understatement to say that Mira didn't almost drop the tray of beers she was bringing over to one of the tables when, around seven that evening, the guildhall doors opened and Laxus came stalking in, headphones strapped on, scowl on his face, and fluffy coat there.

Man, she sure felt glad, seeing that stupid old, disgusting coat, knowing that if it had been what she covered in pool water, he would have been far less contained than he had be (and she was pretty sure that little outburst of his was pretty well contained, given the circumstances).

Still, Mira was nearly certain that he would just go sit down somewhere, to await his turn at getting his order taken, and she'd just send Kinana over there to do it (or Lisanna, if she had to, as the younger woman was always somewhere around, that time of the evening, watching Natsu and Happy scarf down their meals), saving them both the obvious gauche moment they were desperately attempting to avoid.

Until, you know, he didn't just go and find a table. Or a seat at the bar. Didn't go downstairs. Definitely not to the pool. Upstairs was out too. The bathhouse? Absolutely not.

Nope. Laxus came right over to her, after she'd dropped the beers off.

"Mira," he called softly, slipping one headphone off as he came walking behind her, the woman not stopping as she made a point not to glance back at him. "Can I speak with you for a-"

"No."

"No?" Frowning, Laxus followed her all the way over to the bar. "Mirajane-"

"It's the dinner rush, so-"

"Just for a second."

"I said-"

"Kinana can handle everything on her own. Can't you?" They were to the bar then and, pointedly staring over at the purple haired woman behind it who was busy mixing some sort of drink, Laxus added, "Kinana?"

"What?" She hadn't even noticed them there. "What is it that you need me to do, Mirajane?"

"Noth-"

"Watch the hall for a minute, huh?" Laxus spoke over the barmaid, who spared him a glare then. He only continued to stare at Kinana though. "I have to talk to Mirajane for a minute."

"Oh, now it's a minute?" Mira tried to complain, but it was drowned out by Kinana.

"Of course," the younger woman said with a big grin and nod. "Take as long as you- Oh, I'll be right there!"

And as she got distracted with someone calling out for a refill, Mirajane had no choice, but to follow the slayer out of the hall where he only led her to the darker lit side of the guildhall, coming to a stop beside the brick exterior.

Mirajane, usually bubbly when getting to have a conversation with someone she typically didn't (or, honestly, anyone for that matter), only bowed her head a bit, still holding that tray she'd used to deliver the beers a bit dumbly then.

"I'm not going to, like, chew you out or something, while we're out here, just so you know." Laxus was taking off both his headphones then, holding them in each palm, just staring at her. "Mira."

The sun had already set and the darkness was around them, making the glows from inside the guildhall much harsher and the rumbling still going on inside much noisier, as the rest of Magnolia settled down for the crisp Autumn evening.

"I didn't think you would," she whispered back and it was the truth. The idea was in her mind now though. "But why have you?'

Shrugging a bit, Laxus looked off as, scratching at his face with a single finger a bit awkwardly, as his headphone still rested in his palm, the man said, "I thought that I should tell you that… Look, I don't do good with this, alright?"

"Good with what?"

"With… Any of this, really, but… I shouldn't have made you cry or whatever. Last night." He was the one looking off then, shaking his head a bit. Mira was nearly certain that the concept made him uncomfortable. Tears. Especially on woman. Even he'd admit they weren't his strong suit. "I was just… You poured water on me and then-'

"I'm sorry." Mirajane let out a bit of a breath. "About the whole thing. Please, let's just-'

"I have a job that I'm going to take. I should be gone for a week or so." Laxus' eyes fell back on her once more. "And when I get back… If you're still wanting to talk about… I mean, if you still think that you might want me to… Then we can talk. Alright?"

Mirajane blinked. "W-What?"

"Are you not? Shit." Laxus let out a long breath. "I knew I should have just pretended like-"

"No, I am," she was quick to say, reaching out with her free hand then to grab his arm. Laxus' frown down at her hand made Mira withdrawal it with a blush as well as stammer, "I-I mean-"

"When I get back, then, we can talk." He took a step back from her then, glancing up to find her eyes waiting for his. "Alright? We'll go to dinner. I'll have Bickslow or Freed tell you where."

Mirajane wasn't sure just what to make of the encounter, as Laxus quickly went off, into the night, and she didn't see him again. Lucy and Lisanna, who both, of course, knew about what she was considering, both had their own comments with Lucy, again, trying to gently persuade her into just maybe waiting a bit longer to find the right guy and Lisanna, once more, begging her not to ruin the pseudo-friendship she had with the Thunder Legion.

"I'm this close to, like, being a member, Mira! And getting to go on jobs with them instead of Elf! Don't ruin this for me!"

"I think they only let you hang out with them because of Elf, Lisanna," Mira tried, once more, to break to the younger woman. "Since he and Ever-"

"This close!"

Still, when Bickslow approached her about a week or so later, tongue wagging, Mira tried not to look to nervous as he spoke.

"Oi, Mirajane, how come you never told me about how you and boss liked to hang out at such swarthy places?"

"Swarthy," his dolls repeated as the man passed off a sheet of paper on which one of the men had written out the address to the place on as well as a date and time. "Swarthy."

Glancing it over, Mira only said, "I don't-"

"Nope! Hush, yeah? Boss told me that it was none of my doggone business what the two of you were doing and that if I asked you about it, he'd pummel me one good! So don't answer, huh?" Bickslow pounded one gloved fist into the other as they stood before one another in the middle of the guildhall. "But between me and you, it's totally an S-Class thing, yeah? Erza get an invite too? I knew it! But don't tell me, alright? We'll keep it between us."

Then he saluted her and turned to walk off, his dolls repeating a myriad of his words as they floated along behind him.

Which brought Mirajane to where she was currently, attempting again to explain to Lisanna that nothing was set in stone just yet and all that the two were doing was meeting to discuss the entire situation.

"Oh, sure, Mirajane," she remarked snidely. "Just discuss it."

"We are."

"Then why are you putting on your dress that shows your boobs off the best?"

"What are you even implying?"

"I think you know exactly what I'm-"

" _If_  Laxus and I decide to do this," her sister remarked as she stood before the younger, so she could zip up the back for her, "then it'll be because we both need to continue our legacies."

Lisanna about gagged. "Legacies?"

All zipped up, Mira only bounced as she turned to face the other woman, a huge grin hiding the fact that deep down, she was beyond anxious. "Doesn't that sound like something he'll go for? Huh? Legacy and all that garb?"

Blinking, her younger sister merely said, "You should really get going, you know. Being late wouldn't really set the best of impressions, right?" Then she paused. "Although, in this situation-"

"Just let me find the right shoes." Off to do that then, Mira let her face fall back into it's disquieted expression the second her back was to her sister once more.

It would be a long night.

When she arrived at their agreed upon restaurant in the heart of Magnolia, it was to find Laxus already there, seated and waiting.

"I'm not late, am I?" she asked when she approached, the host that led her over to the table pulling out her chair for her while Laxus only watched her carefully.

"No," he said slowly, shifting a bit in his seat as the host walked off, leaving them alone following a waitress coming to get their drink orders. Well, as alone as you could be in a dark lit restaurant filled to it's typical Saturday night brim. "I was just early."

It was the nicest restaurant in Magnolia. Which wasn't saying much, compared to other bustling cities, but still, it was better than nothing. A bit cheesy, honestly. It was kept a bit dark, in the dining area and the décor could be considered a bit dated.

When she first realized this was where Laxus was taking her, Mira was excited, as she immediately thought that he was going to, clearly, agree with her request and...for some reason...made it romantic or something? She wasn't sure. Plus, the feeling didn't last long as, not soon after this thought, another occurred to her.

What if he was just taking her somewhere nice simply because he was planning on denying her the request and, knowing that she was prone to tears, would hope that the idea of doing so in front of so many people would be a deterrent?

She felt like neither, however, was the man's plan as, after studying her for a moment, his eyes fell back to the menu before him again. It didn't seem to be a nerve thing either.

Laxus wanted to eat there because, simply, Laxus liked eating there.

Yeah, she sighed to herself as both fell silent for a minute or so, that felt like the most likely answer.

Decided then, Laxus shut his menu and sat up a bit taller, awaiting Mirajane to do the same so that he could speak.

Once she did (though it was more from feeling his eyes on her than anything else), the man asked, "You just wanna get down to it then?"

When Mira nodded slowly, Laxus took in a deep breath before he spoke.

"I," the man began, eyes on hers, "thought a lot about this. A lot. And… I have some...questions, before I tell you, if that's alright."

Which was a good sign. Right? Mira felt like it was. If the answer had been no, he wouldn't put on the ruse of just needing further confirmation on things, would he? Possibly. Old Laxus might have. But Mira wouldn't have made such a request of old Laxus to begin with.

"Of course," she whispered with a nod of her head. "Anything."

"Well… You know, me and you aren't exactly...close," he remarked. "Why wouldn't you choose, you know, someone else? Someone you were close to?"

"I considered asking a lot of people, but-"

"Then what was it?" he cut her off, the words more tumbling out of him than Laxus actually meaning to say them. "What was it that made you ask me?"

Mirajane shifted a bit, in her seat, uncomfortable more then than she had been the entire time. "It's not… It wasn't just, like, I looked at you and thought we'd have a good looking kid or anything."

"It's not like we wouldn't either though."

Laxus had actually considered this, a few times, over the past week while he was out on his job. What would a kid of he and Mira look like? He pictured a young him with spiked white hair as well as a blonde Mirajane and both were pretty dang...well, not cute, because Laxus didn't say cute, but… Yeah. A few times though, he saw, like, his kid look like Elfman or something and remembered that genes were cruel masters that could blight one sibling and not the other.

And he refused to have a kid that might look like Elfman.

One he claimed, anyways.

Deal breaker.

Kinda.

Shrugging a bit, Mirajane said, "I mean, you're obviously super attractive."

Obviously.

"I mean, other than the eyebrows-"

"Excuse me?"

"-you, your father, and Master weren't exactly horrible looking."

"What about my eyebrows?"

"And you're all super fit. So that's a good thing, if that sorta thing is hereditary."

"My eyebrows are fine."

"And, I mean, you and your grandfather are both very upstanding people. Or, well, Master was, and you're getting there, but-"

"I have plenty of women compliment me on my eyebrows, I'll have you know."

Making a face, Mira asked, "You're a bit self-conscious about them, huh?"

Laxus only looked off. "What else is it, Mirajane, that makes you wanna...have a...kid with me?"

"A lot of things, really, but a big one is your magic."

"What? You want me to teach your brat magic?" Now he was in a bit of a sour mood it seemed. His eyebrows were from the fucking gods. "I don't have to father the kid to do that. I mean, I'd charge you more-'

"That's not what I- Wait, you think that if we have a kid together-"

"I'd give you a discount, yes."

For a moment, Mira only stared. Then, with a shake of her head, she said, "Anyways, I meant that you're very proficient, you know? In your magic?'

"I have a lacrima in me, Mira," he said, tapping gently at his chest. "I can't pass that on to a kid, you know."

"And you know that you're being modest. That lacrima might harness the energy in you, but it has to be there for it to do so."

"You're strong in your own right."

Nodding, Mirajane said, "Which will make it all the more likely that our child will be too."

"You wouldn't want too much power in a little tiny baby, you know. Plus, don't two negatives make a positive?"

"But two positives don't make a negative."

Huh.

"Plus," Mirajane went on as Laxus considered everything he truly knew about mathematics (hardly anything), "just your disposition in general is so great."

"My what?"

"I mean, other than when you're being grumpy, uncooperative, and-"

"Why do you want to have a kid with me again?"

"You're such a leader." And when Mirajane said that, her eyes shone a bit and Laxus knew that she was thinking less about him and more about his grandfather, who she held above everyone else. "And that would be another good mindset, for a child to have. To be confident and-"

"I'm not raising this kid, you know," he remarked. Then he paused. "Am I? Was that...part of the deal?"

Mira opened her mouth to speak, but the waitress was there then with waters and to take their orders, and it was delayed for a bit. It was only once the woman left that Mira spoke.

"I didn't think you'd want to, actually," was what she said as, now without his menu to pretend to be interested in when things got tough, Laxus took to toying with the cloth napkin he'd laid over his lap. "Or that any guy would. I mean, the plan was just for me to, you know, be the parent of… But I don't know. Would you even want the baby to… If you and I did have one, would you..."

"I dunno." Laxus glanced over at her eyes. "I mean, I though this would be kind of a, you know, you and I...whatever and then you have the kid and it's yours."

"Right."

"But… I mean, it wouldn't have to not know that I was its father either, I guess." Laxus didn't mean to swallow so visibly, but he did then, for some reason. "i mean, when it got older or whatever. That would kinda be a dick thing to do to a kid, wouldn't it? To not even tell it who its father was? Especially if you're, you know, still sticking around Magnolia."

"Of course I am. Where else would I go?"

"I dunno. But I just mean that, if you and I… Or you and anyone… And eventually, when the kid was, like, a teenager or something and found out that its father was right there the entire time… That'd be completely messed up. Wouldn't it?"

Mira stared, thinking for a moment before saying, "Well, if you were going to hurt him-"

"How would I hurt him? Or her? It?"

"Like, if the baby grew up knowing that you were its father, but that you didn't care-"

"I didn't say I wouldn't care." Then, looking off, Laxus' face seemed quite dark as he said, "You haven't asked me, Mira."

"Asked you what?"

"Why I wanna do it."

"Oh. Well why do you?"

The slayer was silent for a moment, not look at her, before saying, "I'm not gonna… You're, like, doing this because you don't think that you'll ever end up with someone and that you're running out of time, but it's different for me. I've never wanted...that. At all. That...in love, relationship shit. At all. Or a big happy family. They don't turn out too well, in my experience."

"Laxus-"

"It's just a difference of opinion, Mira," he said, looking back at her once more. "Clearly you see things the opposite of me. That's fine. But that doesn't mean that I wanna just watch it all die."

"Watch what die?"

"My family name. The Dreyars. I'm the last one. It's me and it's over." Laxus held his head higher then. "It'd be selfish, to not at least try and further it. Right? I want… I want my legacy to go on. I-'

"Knew it."

"What?"

Mira couldn't help her blush as she only managed to mimic back, "What?"

Frowning, Laxus shook his head. "My point was that I should have a kid. At least one. And if it's with someone else who also wants one, but isn't looking for a relationship, what's better than that? And I like you well enough. Out of all the other women in the guild… I mean… If I had to have a kid with someone… You'd definitely be high up on the list."

She didn't respond immediately, but after a moment, Mira asked, "What makes you think that I'd give the baby your last name? Especially if you're hardly going to be involved?"

Laxus made a face then, shaking his head at her. "We can discuss that later."

"Well, I mean, there's nothing to discuss, so-"

"There is if you want Dreyar in you."

"Yeah, well- Wait." Mira had been poised to inform him that, really, this wasn't even a discussion because she could be quite (in her mind) devious and would just have the baby and then name it something else and there was nothing that he could do about it. His words, however, made her take pause. Blue eyes round, she asked, "Are you saying that you'll do it?"

"I'm say that I've thought about it and I'm fine with it and, if you're fine with it, then we need to get together and seriously go over a few, like, rules and shit, but- Mira!"

"Do you mean it?" Mirajane had popped out of her seat and rushed to his side of the table, practically throwing herself at the man. "Laxus? Because yes! Yes! I still want to and now you want to and-"

"Mirajane, knock it off," he growled under his breath as she drew the attention of others. "These people probably think I fucking proposed or something. Calm the fuck down."

But she couldn't. Because even if it wasn't real just yet (or anywhere close to being, for that matter), she'd taken a huge leap and, while she'd been dangling in the land for some time, the ground was at least in sight finally.

After a few awkward pats to the back, Laxus got Mirajane to sit back down, cheeks flushed on her part as well then, realizing just how much of an overreaction she'd had. But he didn't understand. At all. She could tell. Mirajane had been contemplating this for over a year. Perhaps not Laxus, specifically, for the long, but certainly the concept. And now it was going to be real and she'd have her own, actual, real baby, eventually, hopefully, and that was definitely worth some celebration.

Or at least on her part it was.

He was embarrassed, of course, Laxus was by that point. By her. And her theatrics. But as they sat there, after their entrees arrived, and he kept glancing over at her and seeing her smile and…

Laxus wasn't friends with Mira. He was hardly friendly. But he felt like...he'd done something nice for someone. Which he'd never admit, but he did enjoy doing. It was why he became a mage. If anyone deserved some happiness, it was Mirajane.

Even though he knew without even much questioning of the woman that she had no doubt idealized the entire concept, Laxus still had a bit of a bubbly feeling in his own stomach. It might not work. In fact, even if it did, it had a high chance of ending horribly.

Not to mention, they still had all those rules and stuff to come up with, before they started down the long road of trying for a kid. Things that might even end their journey before it began.

But…

It was never something he wanted to experience. And if he could have helped it, he never would have. That moment he had with Mirajane, while not anticipated nor desired, was certainly something he'd remember. The closest, probably, he'd ever come to discussing having children with another person.

Maybe it was like what a married couple would feel, when they finally decided to have a baby together.

Maybe.

If it was, then he kinda understood.

There was something so exhilarating about the entire concept. That the two of them had decided, together, to (maybe) try to create another human life was so...so…

So worth dessert, he deemed, to which Mira quite ecstatically concurred.

"Don't expect this every time we're around one another," the slayer warned as, while they both ate slices of pie, he eyed the bill the waitress had left on the table. "Because-"

"Just enjoy the moment, Laxus," the woman told him with a grin so contagious that, while he was able to fight it off, even he wasn't able to let out a long breath of all his negativity. "It won't last forever."

"Yeah," he sighed, forking up a bit of his own pie. "It won't."

 


	3. Percept

"Okay, so first off, I want to be the one to name the baby."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Why is that something to kid about, Mirajane?" Laxus asked as he stood there, in the middle of his living room, glaring over at her. "I'm being very serious."

"And I'm being very serious too," she kept up as, seated on his couch, she held a pen over a notebook, waiting to write down some rules that she  _actually_  planned on following. Because that was not one of them. "You don't get to name the baby."

Another two weeks had passed in which Laxus had left on a job and Mirajane considered just what the future might hold for them. While he spent his time keeping his mind off things, Mira got inundated with Lisanna and Lucy's concerns and complaints over the whole thing as well as all their awe and mystique over Laxus Dreyar actually seriously considering having a baby with her and it was just a busy two week for Mirajane.

A very two busy week.

Then Laxus got back to town and came to the guild to inform her that he wanted her to come over to her house on her off day, so that they could get to discussing things on a more serious note. So Mira was then forced to take an off day (they were actually rare for her) and headed on over.

Laxus' apartment was...nice, to say the least, but also rather sterile. She had to imagine this was more due to him not being around often to enjoy it, but still, it just felt off. Nice still, though, which wasn't a surprise considering she more or less knew the amount of jewels he was pulling in, considering she'd taken to filing most of the jobs up all the hall in those days.

As they sat down to the write the rules and stipulations down, however, Mira and Laxus found themselves hitting a snag right out of the gate.

"I'm the father," Laxus reminded her as if that, for some reason, had anything to do with it. "I should be able to name him. Or her. It. Whatever you want to say."

"I want to say whatever name I pick out."

"Mirajane-"

"Laxus, I'm going to be the one raising this kid, remember?" she asked as she clicked the pen a few times in annoyance. "Saying that name? Constantly? For the rest of forever? And you, what? Even if you're going to be in the baby's life, still will only see it every month? Every two? In what world would you have a bigger affect from a name you don't like than I would?"

He only stared, for a long moment, trying to think up something to combat this, but he was coming up blank. What she said made sense. It made perfect sense. And he hated it.

Deflating a bit, the man said, "Well…don't I get some kind of say? If I'm claiming this kid?'

"Should I put that down then?" she asked. "That you're definitely claiming the baby? Or is there some other stipulation with that?"

"What kind of stipulation could there be?" he asked knowing damn well, back at that restaurant, he'd decided that if it looked anything like Mira's doofus brother… "Mirajane?"

"I don't know," she said slowly as, thinking, she came up with a few. "I mean, if it doesn't look like you, like at all, would that bother you?"

"Is it still mine?"

"Obviously."

"Well, then that's a stupid thing to ask."

"What if it, like, decides it doesn't like magic? Later? When it grows up? Would that bother you?"

"I thought the point of me and you coming together was for it to be a powerful-"

"But if it rejected that?"

Kicking some at the floor, he only grumbled out, "I'm not some sorta dictator, you know. I'm not...Ivan. If I had a kid and it didn't… That's part of life. You don't get to control the way someone else thinks."

"Well, unless your Bickslow."

Right, because Laxus really wanted to think about him at the moment…

"Yeah," he said with a bit of a frown. "Unless you're Bickslow."

"Okay, so," Mira hummed as she thought some more. "Oh! What if it was a girl?"

"What if what was a girl?" he asked as he looked up at her. "Bickslow?"

"No, Laxus. The baby."

"Huh?"

"You said," she reminded slowly as she locked eyes with him, "That you were doing this to further your name, right? If we had a daughter, that wouldn't exactly help you any in that. So should I write down that if we do-"

"Fuck, Mira, make me sound like more of an asshole."

"You said-"

"I've been saying this whole time that if it were a boy or a girl that would be fine with me," he complained. "Or at least I've been talking about them both. So that's a pretty shitty question."

"Well, I was just wondering."

"A girl can add to a legacy, she just can't carry it," Laxus told her simply. "So whatever happens after she's here and has my last name is her problem. I've done my Dreyar civic duty. She-"

"About that-"

"You can name the damn kid whatever you want," he told her in a deadpan sorta way. "But it's getting my last name."

They glared hard at one another for a few moments over that one before, with a sigh, Mirajane moved to write it down. Before, yes, she'd had the idea to dupe him on that one, but they'd discussed beforehand that anything that gotten written on that notebook was binding and they were both going to agree to it.

"What if I cross my fingers?" Mira had asked when he present her with the notebook.

"Then I'm thinking you're too immature to have a baby in the first place."

He had her there.

And in the current moment as, early in the game, Mirajane was giving up and conceding the last name issue to Laxus.

She won on the actual name thing though so, really, they were still pretty even.

"What other things do you think we need to discuss then?" Mirajane asked after, in that pretty print of hers, she wrote down the last name rule. "Hmmm?"

"Well… I guess we should talk about pay."

Making a face, Mirajane stuck out her tongue some as she said, "You're not a...stud, Laxus. I'm not going to pay you for your-"

"What? No." And he tried not to choke. "Mirajane, I meant once the kid gets here. Paying for, you know, incidentals and life in general and-"

"Oh."

"Oh? That's all you're gonna say? Gosh, Mira."

Humming some then, she said, "Well, I guess I hadn't thought about it. You know? I planned to be the one to care for the baby. I have a lot of savings. It's not like I'm not prepared."

"Yeah, but… I mean, I could help out," he said then. "Not that I want to be, like, in the kid's life daily or anything, I'll probably be off on jobs a lot, but when I'm home… I'd bring it gifts, at least, probably. That's what I always wanted Ivan to do for me. When he went far away. And my kid can't be running around, poor as a church mouse."

"Poor as a what?"

"They'll need shoes and shirts and, I mean, I wouldn't wanna spoil the brat, but-"

"You're kinda getting ahead of yourself."

Yeah. He had that tendency.

"I'm just saying," he told her then with a frown, "that I don't want it to be an issue if I want to slide you some jewels. For taking care of my kid. Will it be?"

"So long as you don't make it an issue."

"Why don't you just write it down then?" he asked. "An amount? Can we figure one out? And I'll give it to you every-"

"Laxus-"

"I just don't want," he told her tensely then, "for this to get all mangled and twisted. If we're going to do this, let's get anything that might be a bump in the road out of the way so we don't have to cross any unknown bridges. That's what this meeting was for, right?"

She gazed at him for a long few seconds before saying, "I mean, I don't think I'll be in the position to turn down jewels, you know. When the time comes."

Nodding his own head, Laxus agreed, "When the time comes."

It was only once that was written down that Mirajane found a new thing to bring up.

"You won't throw some sort of weird fit, will you?" she asked him. "When the baby gets here and you don't, like, like the way I parent it? Or something?"

"I mean, you're not going to shove a lacrima in it because it's sickly and hope it does soon so that you can harvest it, are you?"

"Mmmm….nope."

"Alright then."

"And," Mirajane kept up, "I also was concerned about...um… You know."

"I know?"

Nodding, she said, "If… When I find someone that I...actually want to be with...romantically…after the baby is-"

"Oh, uh," Laxus stammered as he coughed into his hand a bit. "I'm not, you know, anything to you, Mira."

"Other than hopefully the father of my child."

"Right. Right," he agreed with a nod of his head. "Other than that. So…as long as they don't try to shove a lacrima down my kid's sickly throat to harvest it-"

"Laxus, if you want to talk about it-"

"It'll always be my baby though," he said then before, staring across the room at her, he asked, "Right?"

Mira didn't break his gaze as she nodded along. "Right. If that's what you want."

"And whatever...relationships I'm in-"

"I'm not in love with you, Laxus," she assured him. "And I don't plan to be."

"Well, make sure you never are, okay?" he ordered then. "This is just what it sounds like. Two people who want a baby, getting a baby."

"You're preaching to the choir."

Again, their eyes met, but that time it was Laxus who changed the subject as he asked, "So about..."

"About..."

He nodded towards a door on the other side of the room and, though Mirajane didn't know for certain what was on the other side of it, she had a good inkling.

"Oh." Finally, Mira blushed a bit and looked off before saying, "I, uh, I know when I'm… Around when we should… And I've heard of a potion you can take that makes you even more… So it shouldn't take us very long to-"

"Then there's no sorta...spell or something we can say that-"

"That magically puts a baby in my stomach? Seriously, Laxus?'

He shrugged a bit before saying, "I wanted to make sure I'm getting, you know, the full ride here."

"The full ride, huh?"

"The full ride, Mirajane."

It was such a tense moment.

Before Mirajane ruined it was giggles.

Laxus only rolled his eyes.

As he came over finally, to join her on the couch, Mirajane only sobered a bit before asking, 'Should I start finding out about any buried secrets in your family that might pop up?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like… I know that you were sick as a kid, but-"

"Not hereditary." He patted at his chest. "Dreyars are a good breed."

"And your mother?"

That got him to frown, shifting on the couch as he was already uncomfortable there. "Excuse me?"

"Is she alive?" Mira didn't look to comfortable asking. "Or-"

"No. She's not."

"Then-"

"And she won't have any affect on-"

"But she didn't die of some sort of crazy illness, did she? That the baby might-"

"No."

"So-"

"Let's move on."

"Okay," Mirajane hummed again, as to keep them both in a good place. "Well, you mentioned something about... _diseases_  when I first asked you about-"

"I'm clean."

"But-"

"Would I have let us get this far without it?"

"I was going to say will you be between today and when we-"

"I think I can keep it in my pants till then, yeah, Mira."

"Good." Grinning over at him, she reiterated, "So no diseases or anything. Now, about your Dreyar attitude-"

"My what?"

"Do you feel like that's because of your upbringing? Both you and your grandfather? Or perhaps something subconsciously that-"

"My up- Mirajane-"

"I'm prying for a good reason this time," she insisted. "Not just to be nosy. This is for the future of my child."

Laxus considered her silently before saying simply, "I'm my own person, nothing like my father or grandfather, and my genes will only bring your child god-like qualities. Anything wrong with him would come from the stock that you bring."

It was Mira's turn, finally to say, "Excuse me?"

"You're from the boonies, aren't ya? And I've seen your brother. You, even. There's something off there. So upbringing or genetics, Mirajane?"

Making a face at him, she retorted, "Fine. I won't ask those sort of questions anymore."

"Thank you."

They both sat there then, for a few moments, before eventually Mriajane got to her feet.

"Are we done here then?" she asked, the one lording over him then. Laxus only blinked up at her though.

With a curt nod, he said, "I'll hang around until it's, you know, time for us to-"

"Good. And then, hopefully, we can go another nine months without talking?"

"Yeah," Laxus sighed as she headed to the door then. "Hopefully."

 


	4. Conception

The nervous energy between the pair was quite palpable as Laxus opened the door to reveal Mirajane standing there on the other side. She'd been fiddling with her fingers, but dropped her hands quite suddenly upon being face to face with him and the man, who'd spent the past half hour bouncing around his empty apartment, was equally as giddy as he was completely overwhelmed and awash with emotions. Push ups had been a good way of getting the pent up energy out, but now, as he stood before the woman, he felt a bit sweaty and feared this a turn off.

When their eyes met though, both had to grin at the obvious feeling that they shared between one another and Mira even giggled a bit because it was just as she'd told him the day before, of course.

"It's just sex," she insisted when they decided what day to meet up to, well, get on with it. "Laxus. That's nothing to me, on it's own. Is it to you?"

"No," he'd agreed because she said it so smoothly which meant that he was going to say it the same way. "It's not."

Now that they were actually faced with confronting such an assertion, however, it felt far heavier than it had in just theory. They were taking a step that they couldn't get back. Even if she didn't end up pregnant, regardless of how they categorized it previously, from that point forth, they would always have a 'sexual history' together in some shape of the word. Not that any weight would be behind it, of course, but still.

Plus, if things did all go Mirajane's way and she did eventually…

Laxus decided not to think about it then as his anxiety was getting the best of him and, as both he and Mirajane shared a grin, they both seemed to decide to expel that bad energy and just focus on the task at hand.

"So," Mirajane practically sang as he let her into the apartment. "Did you wanna...I mean..."

"Just get to it?" he questioned after shutting the door behind her. Locking it, he said, "I planned on it, yeah."

"Oh, did you?"

"Figured dinner wasn't on the table. For us. Before, I mean. if things go well in there, well, I might treat you, you know, to something, but-"

"Oh, so I'm being graded, am I?"

"Mmmhmm. But at least rewarded as well, right?"

"Well, that's only if this goes well."

"Between the two of us, short of you running out of the room in tears over some stupid woman thing or passing out fucking drunk on me, I'll consider it well."

"Those two things happen to you a lot, Laxus?"

He didn't answer though and Mirajane didn't really need one anyways. She followed him right over to the closed door he'd nodded at, that day they were in his apartment going over the specifics of the whole deal, and wasn't surprised to find a bedroom on the other side. It wasn't very big, but given the size of the apartment, it fit quite well.

With this door, Laxus only walked in and waited for Mirajane to decide what the do with the door behind them. As he turned to face her though, she closed it without hesitation.

Then, once more, they were met with that awkward reverence of the moment set before them. It was just sex, like Mirajane had said, but nothing was ever just anything, was it?

"So," Laxus began this time as he awkwardly walked a few steps further into the room, over to the bed. He felt out of place, in his own home, and was starting to wonder if they should have just done this at a hotel or something. "Did you just wanna...start? Or-"

"Well, don't you need..."

"Need what?"

"Laxus." He only shrugged a bit as he said, "If you'd just come over here, I'm sure I'll figure something out."

"Oh, are you?"

"I am."

He only took to tugging the shirt over his head and Mirajane, who did indeed come closer, stared perhaps a bit too heavily as it prompted a reaction from the slayer.

"My eyes are up here and all that shit."

"I'm looking at your tattoo," she explained, even making a face at him. "I've never really paid attention to it before."

Still, he replied rather curtly, "Well, cut it out. Making me fucking nervous."

"Oh? Raijin can get self-conscious?"

"No," Laxus snapped some with a glare. "But he can see stalling when presented with it."

"I'm not stalling."

"Then what are you doing?"

Mirajane didn't have an answer for that though as she watched the man begin to undo his belt. When his jeans dropped to his ankles though, his modesty was still intact as his boxers stayed on. Not returning the eye contact that Mirajane was attempting to make them, the man moved to sit on the edge of the bed.

The slayer was reaching over then, for the bedside table, from which he produced a single bottle. He tossed it to Mirajane who caught it easily.

"You know," he said with that false grin of his. There was no humor to be found in the man and he didn't trick anyone with it. But that wasn't his intention, was it? "So things go, uh, smoothly."

Mirajane wasn't sure if he was trying to lighten things, by getting an easy laugh out of the woman, btu she smiled at him regardless before saying, "I actually do have something you have to do. Before."

"I actually have a list of things I will and won't do, but-"

"It's magic, Laxus," she said as, with a sigh, she finally did approach the bed. "What I want you to do is supposed to increase fertility."

"Is that right?"

"That's right."

"It's not some sort of black market shit, is it?"

"It's not," she assured him.

Laxus was sitting there, with his back against the headboard, expecting Mirajane to do something. Summon something. Transform. Tell him a spell. Pass him a potion.  _Something_. Just not what she did.

No, he wasn't ready, somehow, for her to suddenly begin shimmying out of her dress.

He couldn't say he wasn't enticed though. Just surprised.

They were really doing this. Wow.

Not that he hadn't come to the conclusion far before that, yes, he and Mirajane were going to hookup, but to actually be for sure that in that moment it was happening and they'd definitely edged to the point of no return was just…

Mirajane blushed a bit because though she'd tried hard to play it as cool as he was exceeding at, she was still her and while, yes, it was  _just sex_  it still could feel a bit awkward.

Tossing the little bottle to the bed, Mirajane moved to get it in it as well. Instead of easing into things, they seemed to be moving at a much faster pace now as she immediately moved to straddle the man, which made Laxus laugh, but not from humor, rather just to let out some of that excess nervous energy that was building.

"This is okay," Mira asked him with her head cocked to the side. "Right? Like this?"

"Oh, no, this is more than alright." It was an odd realization too, that this was the first time that they were touching, wasn't it? That day? As he moved to place one of his hands on her hips, he wasn't shocked at how soft it felt, but still intrigued. As he stared into her eyes, he asked, "I thought you had something else though. Some sort of magic, you said?"

Nodding her head, Mirajane told him simply. "Open your mouth."

Laxus was skeptical now, but did so. Mira and he both were thankful he'd thoroughly brushed that morning. She got a good view of molars and canines then as the slayer literally bared it all to her.

"Now stick out your tongue."

He was really starting to doubt her and did so slowly. As he watched though, Mirajane raised her right hand and, with only her pointer finger extended, whispered a soft chant before the very tip began to glow a bright white.

He almost jumped as she literally pressed her fingertip into his tongue. Again, they were both thankful for the others cleanliness.

Laxus felt hot, all of a sudden, as whatever spell it was she'd cast was expelled into his body. Immediately, he questioned, "What did you just do to me?"

"It's just to help increase-"

"I can get it up just fine on my own."

"Oh, I know."

And he gave her a look. But she only returned it.

Heh.

"It'll help with...you know, making sure that our… It'll just help." And she was opening her mouth then and pressing a finger against her tongue. Laxus watched with some curiosity as he shifted a bit, uncomfortable with her statement before.

As the heat subsided, he asked then, "Now what? Has it taken affect or-"

"Give it a few minutes, the book said."

His head fell forwards some, not so it was brushing hers just yet, but closer to doing so, as he asked, "Well, what did you think we should do until then?"

Mira bridged the gap then, her head coming to rest slightly against his as she said, "I think there's some things we can do."

"Yeah, I can think of a few."

Her hand fell then, to rest over the one he had on her hip and, stroking at his fingers, she smiled without nerves for the first time that day and whispered, "Here's to hoping."

And Laxus nodded a bit. "To hoping."

It was when things were calm again and Mirajane was watching him from the other side of the bed where she'd slunk off, breathing softly and lazily while she waited, no doubt, for his next move. After letting out a few slow breaths, he only turned his head to the side and watched her right back.

"So?" he finally spoke after it felt like they'd both gotten back to themselves. "You think it took?"

"Took?" Mirajane asked with a bit of a frown.

"You know. You feel like it was a, uh, one and done now you're all knocked up and stuff, thing? Or should I go ahead and schedule some more baby making in?"

For a long moment, she still only laid there, staring. Then, slowly, she said, "That might have been the grossest thing I've ever heard another person say."

"You haven't heard my joke about the farmer and his tractor yet."

"It doesn't also involve his pitchfork, does it?"

"Fucking help," he grumbled then as he shoved up. "You do listen in, eh? Up at the bar? When I'm entertaining the Thunder Legion?"

"I don't think brooding in the corner and barking at them about how inadequate they are is entertaining-"

"Fucking help."

"Lisanna's told me the joke before. She thinks she has an 'in' with them, you know, the Thunder Legion." Then she gave him a look. "And don't call me the help. I work for your grandfather, not you."

"Fucking help."

"Laxus-"

"What's your sister want with my bodyguards? Eh?" He made a face over at her. "You two trying to take us down? And fuck, your brother too."

"I'd rather you didn't, actually. Would make things kind of weird, if I do end up pregnant."

"Trying to infiltrate? Take us over, huh?"

"Lisanna likes them. All of them. Even Evergreen."

"Why even Evergreen?"

"Why does she like her or why did I phrase it that way?"

"Mmmm, I actually don't give a shit about either, so it doesn't matter."

Mirajane giggled at this, but the slayer on sat straight up in bed, staring at his closed bedroom door. Silent. He wasn't sure what was next, btu he wanted to get to it then, as to end what was currently happen.

"How's it work, anyways?"

"How's what work?"

"This whole… What is it? Ovulation thing?" He about spit after saying it. Sounded so fucking gross.

Given the face he made, Mirajane remarked, "Did Master forget biology when he was mentoring you, Laxus?"

"It came up."

"But I'm supposing nothing relevant to this."

"You know what he told me that sticks out?"

"What?"

"He said," the slayer began as his eyes lifted then, now to the ceiling, "'Laxus, there's only one thing you gotta worry about. Don't get anyone pregnant. It's not worth the trouble.'"

Mira blinked some before saying, "I'm sure he'd sign off on this though."

"I'm not."

And he'd turned his head back to her then and Mira's smile caught his eyes and he didn't truly laugh, not the way that she was, but he did crack a bit of a real smile there for a second.

When the moment passed though, Mirajane only sighed before saying, "For, like, today and maybe tomorrow, I'm at my best chance to get pregnant."

"How do you figure that kinda stuff anyways?" he asked.

"Well-"

"Actually, no. It'll make me not wanna do this."

He stared down at Mirajane, watching as she giggled, but his face remained serious now.

"So," he began again, "what you're basically telling me, Mirajane, is that, you know, we should just fuck from now until tomorrow, right?"

"Huh?" That got her laughter to stop. "Laxus?"

"Optimize the chances and all."

"Some of us have this silly thing called work. And a life."

"Yeah," he grumbled as, finally, he moved to climb out of bed, heading off to his bathroom. "That is silly."

They went out that afternoon, together, to go and get something to eat. Laxus didn't want to run into anyone they knew (neither did Mirajane), so it was a crummy little place on the edge of town. Mira didn't mind it, but it did cause her to question the man a bit.

"Is this where you go to woo all your dates?"

"And if it is?"

"That would explain why I never see you with a woman more than once."

But Laxus only grinned from across the table at her as he question, "You watch out for me? And other woman? Shit, should have gone the closed adoption root, you getting all clingy already."

"Ha ha," Mira retorted with a heavy roll of her eyes. "You're not regretting this already, are you?"

"Are you?"

"No."

"Good." He even nodded his head a bit. "I live life with no regrets. You should do the same."

For a moment, Mirajane only sat there, staring at him. Then, slowly, she replied, "Well, I can think of a few you should have."

"You know what, woman-"

"Hey, Laxus, can I ask you something?"

It was quite sudden, the way her tone changed and she cut him off. Still, the man only shrugged his shoulders a bit and sat tall, awaiting the question.

"Do you ever, you know, think about Ivan?"

"Mira-"

"I know that's overstepping and things, but I just think… If this all turns out… You know, my kid will be related to him too. Should I have worried about that?"

"You should have worried about a lot of things," he chided a bit though, eventually he only shook his head. "But Ivan… No, you don't have to worry about Ivan."

"Do you know where he is?"

"No. And I don't want to know. And if he ever came around fucking with my kid, he wouldn't be around much longer anyways."

Smiling at him then, she said, "I was just thinking about, you know, how my parents are both dead, in case you didn't know, and yours… So it'll just have me. And you, kind of, I guess. But my siblings too. And that's enough, don't you think?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself," the slayer told her simply as his eyes followed the waitress from across the tiny building as she brought over their plates. "Things might not even work out."

But they did work around into Mirajane going back to his apartment with him again. She teased him some with a few quips about inability and just what kind of spell they'd need when they got back there, but Laxus took it in stride.

The whole thing was still kind of abstract to him, but he was living in the idea of having some decent sex that didn't involve much effort, honestly, in those moments, and, yeah, maybe he was kind of hopeful to. That she did end up, you know, pregnant or whatever. It wasn't something he'd ever envisioned for himself, but the more he thought of it…

"It's not like I'm gonna fucking be around the kid every damn day or anything," he complained some at Freed's suggestion that, perhaps, he hadn't thought things out nearly as much as he'd felt he had. "I won't even be around it at all, I figure, when it's, you know, still a baby or whatever. Fucking gross."

They were up at the bar later that night when closing imminent and they were just finishing up one last round of pool. Most everyone had head out for the evening already and they were alone downstairs in the game room.

The rune mage made a bit of a face as he watched the slayer line up his shot before remarking, "You have no idea what you will feel, you know, until the child is here."

"That's true," the slayer agreed. "Which is why I don't fucking need you on my ass about it already."

Still, as Laxus' balls all missed the holes, Freed only moved to take mark out his own shot at the billiards table as he asked, "Have you mentioned all this to your grandfather?"

"Why the fuck would I?"

"Well, I would think that he would be concerned about the fact his barmaid might become impregnated by his grandson."

"Why? Fucking help."

Literally.

"Surely you realize that Makarov would care about-"

"Freed, why are you so concerned with all of this? Huh?" Laxus was growing agitated. The beer in his belly was contributing to this in a major way. "You're more into it than me."

"I am certain that it is I and the Thunder Legion that you will wish to keep after your child when you are away on your long sabbaticals, yes?"

"In what way? Look after it how?" the slayer even snorted. "It's mother is fucking Satan Soul. It's uncle is Beast Arm. His aunt survived death. The kid don't need you. The kid don't need me. It'll be fine."

Freed only bowed his head before moving his cue stick into position as he muttered, "As you say, Laxus."

He saw Mirajane one more time, Laxus did, the next afternoon, but then he had to leave town and was gone for quite awhile. He wasn't really sure how it would all come down, if she did end up… Well.

But this turned out to not be a problem as a month would pass and Mirajane claimed to, uh, require his services once more, which was more than fine with the slayer. More than fine. Though he in no way thought of himself being involved with Mirajane previously and he wasn't so quick to say that they were truly involved in that moment, but it wasn't a terrible situation to find himself in, getting to fuck the demon. It was actually quite an enjoyable predicament, as far as that all went.

Mirajane wasn't too put out by it either. Not for the same reasons that Laxus was feeling, however.

"Your sister told you my one about the priest and the cactus too?"

"Does he accidentally shove it-"

"Fucking help."

She actually found him and his offbeat attempts at humor kind of endearing. And as they sat on his couch that day, eating takeout and avoiding talking about what was coming after, she didn't even try to hide her grin though through it she again critiqued him once more for his assessment of her.

"What?" the man complained right back. "You are the help. Fucking help. Doesn't even know they're help."

"Aren't you help too then?"

"Do I look like I fucking scrub toilets for a living?"

"As someone who also serves you food, I think you'd watch your tone a bit."

"I'm just messing with you, Mira." Laxus tossed back a swig of his drink as he looked down at her. She was seated on his couch with her legs tucked under her, facing him, watching the man with knowing eyes. "But to answer your question, yes, after this meal, I do plan on fucking the help."

"That's not what I asked."

"But it's what I wanted to answer."

There was something about the slayer that had always drawn Mirajane to him in tiny ways. When they were children, his standoffish personality and older kid persona made him this untouchable figure while, when they grew, she found him to be a bit pretentious and kind of an asshole, but also someone in the guild that she wanted to save. She couldn't save her sister, but the others, Evergreen and the ones that acted like they wanted to be all alone, she could save. And she did save. Maybe not Laxus directly, but certainly her interactions with Freed set the stage for Ever and Bickslow.

Now as they were even older though and Laxus didn't need any saving, not really, and Mirajane didn't feel such a draw to the concept anymore, since her sister was safely back in her arms, the interest that she had in the other elite mage was a bit different. She found his aura interesting and knew of his quick wit, but now, to be experiencing it, in all of it's demeaning and arrogant glory, she had to say that she found it quite humorous.

She liked the feel of it too. What she and Laxus were in those moments. Friends. They'd never rightly been that, not truly, though they'd been just about everything else, so it was a nice new thing to experience.

It was almost like dating, but some of the dge was taken off, but then put back on in another way and it was just strange, but…but….

But.

That night as they laid in bed together, Mirajane asked him about his last job and where he thought he was headed next.

"I dunno," he said when he got ot the second question. "You know, I just kind of show up at the guild, look at the biggest pay out or which takes me the furthest away from this place, whichever I feel I need in the moment, and take it."

"What a life."

""You don't miss it?" he asked her. "From when you were a kid? I know it, uh, ended pretty poorly for you-"

"That's one way to put it."

"-but you had to find some enjoyment in it, huh?"

"Of course I did," she told him as, in the darkness, she shifted to sit up a bit in bed. "It was a fun. But...I like what I do now too. Up at the bar. I like it a lot. And I completed that dream, you know? I don't need to keep chasing what's already been sated, you know? I wanted to be at the top, and I made it. I proved everyone wrong. If Lisanna hadn't… But she did. And I found my true passion, anyways."

"Bar tending?" the slayer asked with a slight tone of disbelief. "Mira?"

She only shook her head as she said, "Music."

"Now I can get into that."

"Playing music. Not just blasting it in my ears so I don't have to listen to other people talk."

The slayer snorted a bit before turning onto his side so that he could stare at her straight on. "Well, you're throwing in the towel on that then? Huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're only getting older," he said in a way that Mira didn't really appreciate, but couldn't necessarily argue with. "And now you wanna add a kid onto that? You're finished."

"Thanks, I'm so glad to have your opinion on that."

Laxus' lips contorted into something of a sly grin as he remarked, "You'll be a mom. All sex appeal will be gone. Your time will be taken up. The snotty little brat won't let you have a second of rest. You'll be lucky to even get a chance to breath. But how happy will you be, eh? With your own little Dreyar there to keep you company."

"I'll have a Strauss."

"Don't make me go fish that contract out, woman."

She only giggled then as he fell back on his bed and it was just so comfortable, in every way.

Laxus didn't head off on a job that soon that time and, a bit antsy without one, he found himself sitting up around the bar more than he typically would, usually closer to closing in the evening and, somehow, he found himself walking Mirajane home.

It was only courteous.

"What even made you want a kid?" he asked in the softness of the night as they walked the empty streets together. "Mirajane?"

"I've always wanted one."

"But now, I mean. Right now."

"I just… It's like you said before. I'm not getting any younger."

"Mira, I didn't mean-"

"I've lost so much time to stupid things, in my life. I'm always having to take care of things for other people, you know?" She was talking right over him and didn't even seem that interested in what he had to comment on the matter. "I want to be in control of something for once. To be able to love something and not worry about someone else taking it from me. Ruining it for me. When I was taking care of Elf and Lisanna when I was a kid, I was so miserable. It was horrible. But I miss it, in some ways. And to relive it, the right way this time, is just everything I've always needed, I think. To truly get passed all of that. You know?"

No. The slayer didn't know. Because he'd never had these sorts of thoughts or desires before. Still, he only kicked some at the ground as he muttered, "I kinda just want something to be mine too, I guess."

"Yeah?"

Nodding, he said, "I'm probably not gonna be a very good one, you know, Mira. Father. A...dad, or whatever. I don't even know if I like the idea of it. But I do like that I'll, you know, have a brat in a few years that'll be around. That I can show stuff to. When I want. When it wants. Or whatever. I...I wont' be like Ivan though, you know."

"I know."

"I won't be like Gramps either though."

"You'll be you, Laxus," she told him softly. "It's you that I asked this of after all, you know."

He knew.

"I hope you meet someone, anyways," he told her simply. "That can be a real father to the kid. You'll be good at choosing someone, huh?"

"I hope so."

"And I'll be around when it needs me. Her or him or whatever. I know you don't like it."

"Not really." Still, she giggled some as she glanced up at the man and said, "I hope you find someone too, Lax. Eventually."

"I don't."

"You say that now-"

"I'll say that forever."

"But it's not a bad thing, you know," she told him with a smile. "Needing someone. Wanting someone. Even the same someone. It's human nature."

"Don't you know yet, woman?" he griped though his tone wasn't nearly as into it as he wished. "I'm the fucking Thunder God. I'm not a mortal."

"Or course not, Raijin."

"Damn straight."

Arriving at her place, he only looked up at the moon as they stood there outside the house for a few seconds, as if to say their goodbyes. But neither were too good at those and so, every night they reached this point, they were never quite sure what to do.

"I'll see you later, Laxus, I guess," she told him after a few awkward beats before giving him a slight wave and a bounce. "Tomorrow, maybe?"

"Maybe, he agreed. Then, instead of turning to walk off, he found himself adding, "I'm, uh, glad, Mirajane, that we're… That we're friends now. You know."

Her smile was different now, but her eyes were still alight as she replied, "So am I, Laxus. More than you know."

They did see one another the next day, but for a different reason than they'd both thought. Laxus arrived at the hall to find a very pricey S-Class job that he just knew fucking Erza would snatch up the second she had the chance, if he gave her it, and she'd probably take fucking Natsu or one of the other losers out on it and that would just bug him far too much. No. He had to take it, just to keep himself from getting pissed off about irrational things.

"Hopefully when you come back," Mirajane offered up when he came to her to file the request, "it'll be with some good news, right?"

At that point, Laxus wasn't sure. On one hand, he'd get to start prepping to be a father. On the other hand, he'd no longer be able to fuck Mirajane as that end of the deal would be complete.

Both had their pros and their cons.

But his job took a lot longer than anyone could imagine and Laxus had little contact with the guild during that period. Mirajane, however, found herself waiting a bit impatiently for his return once she found that she did have the perfect news to tell him.

And also a lot of time to reflect.

"Mira," Lucy sighed when she talked to her about it one day when the bar was dead and they were the only ones around, it seemed. "You cannot seriously be thinking about that."

"What's wrong with Laxus?"

"There's everything wrong with Laxus. And everyone told you that if the two of you started this...thing together, that you'd only end up feeling things for him."

"No one said that."

"They told you that you'd only end up getting hurt."

"And I haven't yet, have I?" Mira grinned over at the other woman as she continued to scrub down the bar. "You haven't spent the past two months with Laxus like I have."

"Neither have you," the other woman pointed out. "He's been gone for most of it!"

"When there's a connection with someone, there's just a connection."

Lucy only sighed a bit and said, "Whatever you think, you know? You'd be the one with knowledge about this sorta thing, not me."

It would be a few more weeks though until Laxus found himself back in Magnolia. Mirajane, of course, immediately wanted to speak.

"In private," she added to which he only nodded his head.

"Me too," he announced back at her and she smiled and he smiled and it would just be wonderful, wouldn't it, she thought, as they went out to a secluded part of the guildhall grounds, under a shade of a tree near one of the gates.

"Should I go first?" she asked. "Because-"

"No, I think I should," he was quick to interrupt her. "Before we get ahead of ourselves, you know? I wanna be upfront about this."

Something was off, Mirajane felt it, with Laxus. Something was very off. But not in a bad way. The vibe he was giving off was one of excitement and joy. It wasn't something that was typical of the slayer, fine, but it was still a good thing, right? When she told him she was pregnant?

After Mira nodded, the man let off one of those nervous laughs of his before running a hand through his hair.

"I, uh, you know, was gone on that job an awful long time. And I'm sorry about that. I got caught up."

"Well, it was an S-Class."

"Eh? Oh, no, not with the job." Then he beamed again and Mira felt something shift inside herself. Almost like she knew, before he even said it. Like she knew exactly what was coming.

But how could she?

When it was literally the first time in the man's life he was ever going to say what he did?

"I, well, Mirajane, I..." Then he smiled and it was like nothing she'd ever seen out of Laxus before. Not even when they were kids. "I met someone."

"W-What?"

"You were right, you know," he was continuing on quickly then, "about the whole thing. About, you know, needing someone. And it's not a bad thing. You're right. When I was out on my job, I met this woman and she's… Mira, you gotta meet her. You guys would get along so well. She'd get along with anyone. I-"

"Laxus-"

"I'm gonna go back out to see her," he was going on. "But I had to check in with the fucking Thunder Legion. Those idiots. They worry about me, you know, if I'm gone too long. And they'll wanna meet her too, I'm sure, but I'm not so certain about that just yet-"

"Laxus, you're rambling."

"Sorry." And there was that nervous laugh again and some more running his fingers through his hair. "I really came to town to see you though. To, you know, tell you that I don't think… I'm not gonna be able to continue this, you know? Me and you… I'm sorry, Mira, I really am. And if you want to know some of my other friends, or whatever from other guilds, I'd be more than happy to introduce you. I know some high class guys, you know."

"I don't… I don't think I'll need that, Laxus, no."

He was still all smiles though as he said, "Well, I guess we don't need to make plans then, for tonight, huh? Ha. I gotta figure some shit out. I've never felt like this before, you know? This-"

"In love?"

"Don't say that," he told her, though the thought didn't cause his mood to drop in the slightest. "Mirajane. Not yet, you know?"

"I know."

One of those beats passed again and it was so bad. The whole thing was so bad. Mirajane wanted to run away, but she couldn't. How could she?

"That is what you wanted to talk about though, right?" he asked her then. "Something isn't up, is it? I-"

"No, I… I, uh, I don't know." Mira even grinned at him. "I'm just...so happy for you, right now. This is...this is amazing, Laxus."

"It's thanks to you, you know," he complimented then with a nod of his head. "You really put a lot of thoughts in my head, these past few months. I… I don't know what else to say."

"Then don't say anything." Mirajane nodded back towards the hall. "You should go rally your troops. They'll have their own little meltdown about this, you know."

That made his grin fall finally. "Yeah, I know."

"But they mean well, Laxus," she added because if she talked long enough, she was pretty sure she could put off the inevitable tears that would happen sooner than later. "They just struggle with showing it sometimes."

"Like us all, huh?"

"I guess that's right."

"Thank you, Mirajane." His tone was more even then as he looked her right in the eyes then. "For being so understanding. I know I've fucked all this up, but-"

"Don't even think about it."

"We'll still be friends," he was quick to promise her then. "Like we have been. You know? And you'll find someone that's perfect for you. And your baby."

Mirajane nodded as he turned to walk off for the guildhall. Softly, she agreed, "Yeah, I guess I'll have to."


	5. Discern

Laxus could recall, with ease, the last time that he was truly happy. He was above five and not so sickly yet though he definitely could catch a mean cold every year in the winter. His mother was well too and not on her deathbed. His father was happier and, though Ivan was known to butt heads with dear old Gramps, his madness hadn't yet rotted his brain away.

They were a family.

A real family.

There was love and care and fun. His father would play with his toy cars with him and his mother would make them all dinner, even Gramps if he wasn't too busy, and that was just it. Everyone has that glorious time period in which everything was perfect. Laxus' just happened to come very early. That was all.

Or so he thought.

He thought he'd never feel it again. True love. Because, oh, he loved the Thunder Legion and the guild and even his damn grandfather, but it wasn't the same. How could it be? There was a difference between having love for something and being in love with it and, man, he'd fallen in love with her.

There's been other women. Plenty of other women. Women that he'd enjoyed for a time period, maybe even loved at some point, but he'd never felt what he did that first night he spent with her. And every night after that. He feared every night that he fell asleep that he'd wake up and it would have left in the night, but this hadn't been the case so far.

He truly was in love.

Him.

Laxus fucking Dreyar.

The Thunder Legion, of course, were beside themselves. Evergreen thought she wasn't attractive enough for him, Freed was convinced she was just using him for his status and jewels, and Bickslow, well, Bickslow mostly just lamented his inability to, as he put it, snag a woman like that. Makarov too was in a state of disbelief (twinged with that jealousy Bickslow had).

But time heals and time proves and as the months went on, the complaints of his friends became less and less until, eventually, they were so used to Laxus being with someone, seriously being with someone, that they hardly thought anything about it.

It was hard to think about, anyways, considering the man was gone so much.

Laxus had always been a traveler. Always. He'd wandered since he was abandoned by his parents and gained the freedom to do so. It never made the loss go away, but it took some of the strain of it off. Plus, Magnolia was fucking lame.

Now that he had a woman though, his travels weren't to unknown towns with long bouts of brooding at scenery in between. No. Laxus was a high roller then, it seemed, as he wanted to take his new lady out on all sorts of expensive trips. It got to the point where he was either off with the woman or off on a job to gain more jewels to take her somewhere even nicer.

At a certain point, Freed and Evergreen came to him with concerns that he was being used for said jewels. Bickslow came too, but only to remark that if anyone deserved handouts from the man, it was definitely him.

But the slayer rebuked them for even thinking it.

Then thought it alone late at night.

So he spent a few tortuous months not taking her out as much. Just had her take a vacation with him, in Magnolia. To see how he lived. Only they didn't do much of that, as he hardly went down to the hall and mostly just stayed locked up in his apartment with her.

The way it should be.

Eventually, Freed, Ever, and Bickslow had to just accept that not only was Laxus going to be with the woman, but also that any problem they thought of would only be debunked by him immediately.

"Maybe it's true love," Lisanna told them one day when she observed their downcast attitudes. She used to enjoy hanging out with them, as they were full of life and always had something going on, but recently they seemed to be in a bit of a slump. "And they'll be together, seriously, forever. Wouldn't that be nice? For Laxus?"

"Shouldn't you be mad at Laxus?" Evergreen complained as he glared at the woman. "I thought your sister was trying to get all knocked up by him."

"Who can be mad at love?" Lisanna asked simply. "And Mira's moved on, you know."

They all knew.

Or at least had been told so when the news broke that Mirajane was pregnant.

Laxus too found out eventually, but he was too busy with his woman to really pay attention to any of it. Mira wasn't his deal anymore. The first time he saw her up at the guild after finding out, he only congratulated her and went on his way. He was happy for her though, of course. How could he not be? It was all that Mira said she wanted in the world and now she had it.

As someone who'd just found the one thing he wanted in the world, he was glad she too was feeling such happiness.

But she wasn't though. Because it was all one big lie.

Part of Mirajane was heartbroken.

It didn't take a lot of her to fall in love. Or out of it. But when the process was interrupted by another, it did hurt her some. She'd liked the path her and Laxus seemed to be going down and the vision of them being together had become a desire of hers. It hurt to know that he'd found that happiness with someone else.

But she'd have gotten over it by that point, she was certain, if she wasn't also carrying his child.

The other part of the woman was afraid of what her lying would cause for the baby. When the original plan was devised by her, she was going to be honest with her future child about whatever transpired. Who their father was, why he was or wasn't involved, and how that was all okay because they had one another.

Now though, a lie was complicating all things.

She didn't want to tell Laxus that the child she was pregnant with was his. For a lot of reasons. The first was out of shock, but now, it had gone on so long that she back out. Plus…

She really didn't want to fuck things up in his life.

Though Mira thought that she and Laxus could possibly be good together, she was seeing currently a woman that he could actually be great with. Why would she purposely allow a wedge to grow between the two? Honestly, before she got all tangled up with him, the idea of Laxus finding love would have enthralled Mirajane like no other. She didn't even hate it, really, currently. He was happy and that was…

Confusing, admittedly, but Mira really cared about him. She had before it all started, but now that they'd gotten to know one another better than ever, she couldn't pray for any pain to come to him. If he'd truly found the one that he was meant to be with then...then…

Then what?

Then she kept the lie going.

She'd found another man, after Laxus flaked on her, who didn't want to be involved in the child's life. Which was for the best, she'd decided, because she'd wanted to raise the child alone originally, hadn't she? It sounded fishy to some, but not enough to poke holes in. Or call Mirajane a liar.

Plus, clearly someone got her pregnant. No one else seemed to be able to easily make the jump straight to Laxus being the culprit and, well, time just went on. The guild was a very busy place, after all. Even Mira's siblings couldn't dwell on her life constantly (though both were prepping for their future aunt/uncle status). The closest to figuring it all out was Lucy, who Mira hadn't told of her pregnancy, but at least of her possibly entering a real relationship with Laxus, but there was no way that the celestial wizard would ever call her closest friend a liar.

No way.

Eventually Mira was able to find the delectation she once envisioned over having a child. Pregnancy suited her, Makarov told her with a grin one day at work and though sometimes her body didn't agree, she found that overall she enjoyed it. There was something so amazing about the concept and, slowly, her feelings for Laxus were buried with the plans she'd made upon having her child. Decorating the nursery with Lisanna, looking at baby names with Lucy, hassling Elfman and Evergreen about when they too would be having a child.

It wasn't all rainbows and sunshine, nothing was after all, but the good outweighed the bad.

"You will take off as much time as you need, of course," Makarov told her as the months progressed and the time grew near. "Kinana and Lisanna will fill the gaps. Not that you have to worry about them out working you, I imagine. There will always be a place for you here."

"Thank you, Master," Mirajane giggled as she sat at one of the booths, polishing glassware. "But I don't think I need to take off just yet. I-"

"You will take off starting tomorrow, as planned," he insisted. "You're about ready to pop, I fear."

"Master-"

"I assume that you already have chosen a name for the child," he sighed from his spot atop the bar. It was before opening and they were alone until Kinana was due to arrive, in the next half hour. "Mira."

"I have."

"Well, be it a boy, Makarov is a very fine name." When all he got was a look from the woman in return, he sighed as tapped his fingers along his staff. "Yes, well, it is a hard name to grow into. I suppose I should save it, anyhow. My grandson is getting awfully close with that lady friend of his. Maybe I can con him into naming his firstborn after me."

"Something tells me, Master," Mira told him with the straightest face she could pull, "that Laxus wouldn't go for that."

"Erza then. Her first child. Surely."

"Maybe," the barmaid agreed, though more to just get off the subject. "Maybe."

It became a moot point anyways, it seemed, as the child Mira bore was a little girl. Elfman bawled over the idea of having another woman to be a man for and Lisanna gushed over all the cute dresses and bows she could put the child in while Mira only held her baby close and soothed it's cries.

Save a few visits from the likes of Cana, the Master, and Lucy, the Strauss siblings seemed lost in their own little world for a few days.

This just so happened to coincide with Laxus and his girlfriend's 'vacation' in Magnolia. As he was finding out, it wasn't his money she was after at all. Just him. Like he knew. Before the damn Thunder Legion started trying to fuck with his head.

They didn't get it. They didn't see it. She understood him. In ways no one else did. So how could they understand then, when they didn't understand what it was that they were supposed to understand?

Laxus gave himself a headache with that one, but when Freed did mention to him that Mirajane had given birth, he sent his regards along with the rune mage for when he saw the woman.

"Close friend of yours?" his girlfriend (gosh, it never felt so easy to say that) asked as they sat together on his couch, following his most trusted follower's departure. The dark haired woman had linked her arm with his and snuggled up real close as Laxus only sipped at his coffee and considered her question.

"Not really," he remarked simply. "Just closer than most."

"You should send her something then."

"Send her what?"

"Some sort of gift," she insisted. "It's what you do, you know, when your close friends have a baby."

"Like I said," he grumbled around his coffee, "we're not that close."

They weren't, either, were they? They had a couple month...fling, maybe, it could be classified as, but that was said in done. In Laxus mind, Mirajane had moved on quite efficiently and in her mind, he had nothing to move on from. They were just two people who, in a few moments of weakness, shared something together. But the weakness was over and Mira was strong then, for her child, and Laxus was enraptured with his woman.

Whatever had happened was so far removed from his mind that, after that morning, he didn't think of it again.

He had more important things to focus on anyways.

Because Laxus had never felt the way he did, when he was with his girlfriend. Not since he was a boy. And he couldn't imagine losing that again. Which is why, when the 'vacation' was over and his girlfriend was bidding to return back home, Laxus did the one thing he never saw himself as doing. Never wanted to do. Before that moment. Before he had the best thing in his life and wanted to keep it there. Forever.

"Laxus is getting married," Lisanna told her sister with a bit of a gagging face and a roll of the eyes as she arrived home late one night. She only came to stretch out on her sister's bed as the woman sat on the end of it, attempting to nurse her fussy child. "According to Bickslow and Ever. I didn't see Freed, but I imagine he's just as annoyed by the whole thing as they are."

Mira was so tired from the baby that it didn't even register, at first, was her sister was saying. Once it did, she only continued to face forwards and shut her eyes something.

"He is?" was the soft sigh that left her mouth and in return, Lisanna only let out a long groan.

"Yes. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for him and things, but can you imagine how stuffy that wedding will be? I almost don't even want to go."

"Then don't."

"And miss out on the spectacle of it all?" That time Lisanna hummed. "Can you imagine it, Mira? I mean, no offense to you, because I know that you were kind of into him too back before...before you got with… But imagine it. Wanting to marry Laxus Dreyar. Gross."

"What's wrong with Laxus?"

"Nothing's wrong with him. Except his attitude. And arrogance. And that fact that he just won't let poor Natsu have a chance at proving himself. Imagine marrying a jerk like that."

"Yeah," her sister agreed softly. "Imagine."

The first time that Mirajane took her newborn up to the bar, most everyone wanted a chance at her. Makarov was the first one that got to hold her though, as he was there before opening, and he only smiled down at the child with the remark, "She's powerful, Mira. I can sense it."

"Mmm," the babe's mother sighed with a nod. "So can I."

"When she's big and strong, she'll be a fairy. You be sure of it." The man smiled sadly at Mira as he said, "I won't be around to see it, of course, but-"

"Don't speak like that, Master."

So he didn't.

Erza picked up immediately on the magical energy the child had as well, but seemed rather against picking up the child herself.

"Come on, Erza," Lucy giggled into her palm as the swordswoman only stood with her arms over her chest. "You know you wanna."

"I will not. I might drop her."

"You will not. Just do it."

"I refuse."

It was all fun, anyways, for the others, though Mirajane was very cautious of just who could and couldn't hold the baby. She was very busy explaining to Natsu why he was on the very short list pertaining only him of who couldn't hold her when it happened.

Laxus arrived.

The man was rarely interested in the goings on of his guild mates, so he hardly glanced over at the slight crowd of them at one table. Only headed towards the request board to pick up a job so he could head out. Something big. Something to mark the occasion. Rank in some jewels so he could go out and buy a fancy ring for his girl. His woman. His lady.

That's what she said she'd be. His. Now he wanted to make it as official as possible before she left town.

But it was the some of a child's cry that did make him glance over and it felt more than just coincidence that Mira seemed to look up from her child at that exact moment, causing their eyes to meet. Natsu was still begging in front of her, to hold the child (just to show off to Lucy, who'd deemed him not eligible for such a thing long ago), but Mira only looked around him, right at Laxus, who felt frozen for a moment.

Laxus wasn't one for them, babies, but he and Mira had talked about it endlessly, it felt like, at some point in life. Because everything from before he met his girl- fiancee felt like a lifetime ago. Even something that was only a month or so prior. Still, he felt like he should at least go meet the child. It was awkward, anyways, making eye contact and at least not speaking.

It happened though, once he was close enough. Just a few more steps, over to where Mira and the others were, and it hit him hard enough to stop the slayer dead in his tracks.

Everyone had a scent. Everyone. And there was not one that a slayer knew better than his own. Laxus was no different. He could place his scent anywhere.

Which is why it was so halting when that the one of that child in Mira's arms hit him. It reeked of many things. The Strauss home, milk, that new baby scent. But beneath all of that was its own, true scent. Most children's are made up, in some way, of their parents. And yeah, Laxus caught a whiff of Mira in there, but mixed in with that…

"Laxus, are you alright?"

That came from Evergreen, who was in the bar that day it seemed (just so she could ruin Elfman's day and refuse to ever have a child with him as he was in a desperate kick, it seemed, to give his new niece a little cousin to play with; disgusting). She came up to rest a hand on her idol's arm as she spoke.

"You look," she remarked, taking in how the blood was draining from his face, "like you've seen a ghost."

He had. And the way that Mirajane looked away from him, so quickly, well, it just felt like it told him everything he needed to know.

"I have to leave." He shrugged Ever off too and some other people were glancing his way then, but Laxus didn't care. "Now."

"But- Laxus!"

He didn't care for Evergreen's calls. Only turned and rushed right out of the guild. To get away from it's members. From Mira.

But mostly...that baby.

As he set off at a brisk pace, he felt him come back to himself, reason with himself, even convince himself that he was wrong. Because there was no way that...but Mira said...how…

Laxus didn't have a baby.

Laxus had a new fiancee and a new life and was going to be moving away from Magnolia, maybe, even. They'd talked about it, at least. He was going to live in a nice house with his woman and maybe a nice little dog or cat to start their family.

Theirs.

What would eventually be their kids and their life.

Because Laxus didn't have anything close to that currently.

Did he?


	6. Emanation

It was a terrifying feeling, fear was. One that Laxus wasn't accustomed to. He was so used to being strong in every situation and, even when he wasn't, having the delusions of strength to back him up. And while he still was stronger than every person involved in the current situation, it wasn't physical strength he needed.

Emotional was the only one that mattered.

And, unfortunately for him, that wasn't a trait the Dreyar men were typically prone to.

He was finally the happiest he ever dreamed of being in his entire life. With a woman that loved him and cared for him. Really loved and cared for him. Not the way that all women (in his mind, at least) loved him. In a true, honest way.

And he loved her.

He loved her so much that he was, for once in his life, truly afraid. If he told her the truth of what all had gone on with Mirajane Strauss, maybe she'd understand. He hoped she would. It was all things that were going on before the two of them had met, after all. She couldn't hold something like that against him.

And she probably wouldn't have. Had it just been some sort of previous relationship. But when you added a child into it…

He just didn't know what she'd say. What she'd think. Or what Mira would do, honestly, if he came to her with his suspicions.

Sometimes, he reasoned with himself, it was just better not to know.

Even, maybe, he could convince himself that he hadn't picked up such a scent. Yes. Maybe. Maybe he was confused. That had to be it. Right? Mirajane said that someone else was the father. And she would be the one to know, wouldn't she? Yes. Yes, she would.

It was her child.

Not his.

Whatever she said about it was law, as far as he was concerned.

His nose meant nothing.

But...if he caught that scent again…

He had to leave. He wanted to leave anyways. Not Fairy Tail as a whole, of course, but certainly Magnolia. He had since he was a kid. And as he and his fiancee began to discuss plans after their marriage, it just made more and more sense to move away. Buy a nice house somewhere outside of the city. He could still take jobs from Fairy Tail. Just be sure Mira or her child weren't around.

Yes.

Yes.

That could work.

The only hang up, however, was that, well…

Deep down he knew the truth, of course. He knew in his heart what Mirajane had lied to him about. What he was lying to himself about. Keeping from his fiancee. That child, that baby…

His father had left him too, when he was a boy. A lot, actually, but that final time… It hurt. It hurt a lot.

At the same time though, he was leaving before she even knew who he was. What he was. It didn't matter to a baby of less than a year who their true father was. Only that someone who loved them was taking care of them. And Laxus knew for certain that Mirajane was more than doing that. The kid was fine. If he were to stick around, make a big stink of the whole thing, not only would he be risking his own blossoming relationship, but also whatever peace Mirajane had made with herself on the subject. He wasn't looking to fight over the kid.

He never had been, really.

The whole thing had always been Mirajane's doing. Always. He only ever agreed to it because she seemed so into it and tapped into his vanity. He wanted a kid to carry on his name and to teach stuff to, to brag about. To just have.

And he could have that, eventually, with Tasha. His fiancee. Soon to be bride.

This baby though…

Mira originally wanted it all to herself and seemed to be resound to having it that way now. Considering all the turmoil that would come about to his relationship should he start poking around, Laxus found that he too was fine with it all.

Just…

He spent a lot of times on jobs. He told his fiancee that it was simply because they needed jewels, of course, for their wedding, but it was more than that. The longer he spent away from that place, the easier it was to keep it all out of his head. And Tasha questioned him, when he wanted to spend so many jewels on a home when he was also talking about needing jewels for their wedding, but he was so insistent and she wasn't too bad off either.

She wasn't a mage, like most people he interacted with. Rather, she was one of those creative types that he found pretentious and annoying and kind of worthless to society. But he had to admit, some of her paintings were quiet beautiful to look at. When he was able to admit that. A lot of her stuff was a bit darker in nature and he found them somewhat off putting.

"I find her off putting," Evergreen grumbled more than one about the woman, but he only waved her, Freed, and Bickslow, even, off as just being jealous. He was happy, he kept insisting, and that was all that mattered.

But he wasn't happy. And they could tell. Evergreen and Bickslow, they just thought that it had to do with the new woman in his life, but Freed wasn't as foolish. Though he still had some reservations about Laxus' whirlwind romance, he could tell that it was something else that was eating at the man.

And, in not so many words, Laxus explained it to him as they worked alone in his apartment one day, prepping for the move to the beautiful new home he'd bought some ways away. The Thunder Legion were all depressive to see him leave and Ever had gone off on a job, in some sort of protest, while Bickslow mostly just wasn't any help anyways, so he wasn't invited to help move.

No, it was just Laxus and Freed that day.

"I know that you do not consider Magnolia much of a home, Laxus," the rune mage was sighing as he boxed up little trinkets around the house, mostly taken as souvenirs of the man's many complete quests over the years. Freed handled each and every one with as much care as he would anything, being sure to wrap them in old newspaper and gently place them in the box. "However, it must at least be troubling you, leaving home. Is that it? Changing home base does not make you any less an integral part of-"

"Mirajane Strauss...how old is her child now?"

Freed frowned a bit, over at where Laxus was boxing up his liquor bottles that he kept on display in a case, before replying, "I am not completely sure. Hmm. If I had to guess, I suppose close to it's first birthday now."

"So right around the date of my wedding."

"I suppose. What difference is it then?" Freed shook his head some. "I'm sure if you told her not to bring the child for fear of it sobbing, she would more than comply. Or perhaps you wish not to invite her at all? A bit awkward, given Evergreen and her brother are so close-"

"Are you gonna get her a gift?"

"Mira? Or Evergreen?"

"The baby, Freed."

"For… Oh. Her birthday." He made a face again as he shook his head some. "I do not see why I would. I am not of relation to the child. Although, Mirajane and I are quite friendly to one another, I do not see us as being outright close. Why? Do you plan on getting her something?"

Shaking his head some, Laxus only said, "While I'm away…gone, I mean. When I move.. Mira and Erza will be the strongest left, you know, in Fairy Tail. That are close enough to constantly defend it. Only Mira, truly, as Erza is gone on jobs often these days and..."

"Well, I'd like to think that my power has become quite-"

"Freed."

"Yes?"

"Just..." And he took a deep breath before letting it out slowly. Turning a bottle in his hands, Laxus stared down at the liquor with an intense gaze as he remarked, "You should watch out for her. The child. Her mother might become the protector of Fairy Tail. What if someone attempt to...harm the child? Or if something happened to it and Mira went away also? Then who would be left to protect Fairy Tail? The Salamander? No. No. Someone should watch out for that child. She's handicapped enough, being a Strauss and all. She… You should become closer to Mirajane, in my absence. Become true friends. Now that I'm getting married, I won't be around as much to do things for, but surely, she…with a young child..."

"L-Laxus..."

"We won't talk of it again." And, with that, the man moved to wrap the bottle current in his hand in old newspaper before putting it in the box at his feet.

Freed stared over at him then, fully, for a long few moments before saying, "I will gift her with a nice birthday present. The child. Is there something in particular that you think I should-"

"What would I know about such a thing?" the man grumbled. "I- Stay here for a moment."

Freed looked after him, but knew better than to follow. When the slayer returned, it was with another trinket, this one was a special one, Freed knew, as it stayed on his dresser in the bedroom. Thinking the man wished for him to place it with the others, Freed moved to grab some newspaper, to wrap the crystal figurine, but Laxus held back to handing it off to him.

"This," he said simply, "is what you'll Mirajane for the brat's birthday. Tell her to place it near a window. On the sill even. It...in the sunlight, it makes a nice light show. The baby will probably like it."

"Laxus...this is from one of your S-Class quests," the rune mage remarked with a heavy frown. "Do you not remember? I cannot give the child this. It was a gift. An important one. That was the jobs where you-"

"I know," the man told him darkly, "what it's from."

"Then-"

"You are to give it to Mirajane and tell her it's from you, to the child. Is that understand?"

Freed didn't want to, but with a soft sigh, he nodded his head.

He understood.

He understood far too much, he was afraid.

Mirajane, however, wasn't having as heavy months as Laxus. That first one, well, the first weeks of the first one, after Laxus fled the guildhall, she was quite concerned. She thought that the slayer knew, that he was going to confront her. Then, slowly, the days passed without much occurring. She didn't see the slayer in those following days and, once she did again, it was without much fanfare, he took a job, said hardly anything to her, and that was it.

That was it.

He wasn't going to do anything.

Maybe, she convinced herself, maybe she'd misunderstood. That stricken look of his hadn't meant what she feared it had.

It was easy for her to forget all about it and go on with the adjustments to having a new life so dependent on hers. And, while she considered in many ways herself as having raised Elfman and Lisanna, it was so different when it was your baby. Your real baby. When it was your own child. Sure, there was downs, of course, but the ups were much more frequent and she reveled in them quite often.

Life was never perfect, especially not for a mage, but Mirajane had never felt quite so complete than she did when caring for her newborn. Her siblings were around to help often and some of her closer friends int eh guildhall as well seemed rather invested in the little girl's life. And though there were times when she wished to be able to go out or felt slightly lonely, all by herself, at home, those periods were quick to pass.

All the things she'd ever wanted in life were coming to fruition and though she was doing it without a man at her side, Mira found that she quite liked that as well. She'd been alone, after all, when she was young and caring for her two younger siblings. Things were not so different now. Only now, she had the means to truly care for someone so young. The capability to love something that relied so heavily on you for survival.

Mira thought she'd experienced love before, but everything else paled in comparison to what she became accustomed to in that first year.

"Aura," Lisanna whispered softly one afternoon as she gently, "how can you be sleeping? Aren't you at least a bit excited that your favorite aunt is back? And look who I brought to see you."

"She's getting so big," Happy gushed as he hung onto Lisanna's shoulder and looked down at the child as well, tail flicking. "Wow. You leave for a few weeks and everything changes."

"You two let her sleep," Mira complained from the other room. She was in the adjoining bathroom and had heard them enter. "I'm getting ready for work. You can play with her when she wakes up. You'll still babysit right, Lisanna?"

After getting home from a grueling job? What else could she possibly want to do?

Still, she only smiled down at where the child was resting, in the center of her sister's bed, and nodded her head some.

"Of course," she replied. "Are you gonna ask us how our job went?"

"In a minute," Mira relayed once more. "Just let me finish getting ready."

Lisanna only sat on the edge of the bed and Happy, jumping off her shoulder, went to sit beside the baby, who he watched with interest.

Softly, to the cat she said, "It's still kind of surreal, is it?"

Nodding, he beamed as he said, "Babies are so great. Except for, you know, when they're whining or stink or-"

"Well, I think everything's got it's bad sides, Happy."

Lifting his head up then, his grin changed as he asked through a snicker, "Aren't you ever gonna have any babies? Lisanna? And with who? Do you think?"

Giving him a look, she only shook her head as hse said, "I'm pretty wiped just from being an aunt these past few months, Happy."

His eyes fell to the baby once more then as he said, "Yeah, she can be a lot of work, huh? You hardly ever wanna hang out anymore. Just jobs or coming home to hang around Mira and the baby."

"Just wait," the woman insisted to him. "Eventually, the baby will be able to go places with us. Won't that be lots of fun?"

"I guess so," he agreed before adding, "But it feels pretty far away."

"Time has been a drag," Lisanna nodded, "as of late."

"Really?" And the bathroom door opened then, revealing Mirajane. She grinned at the Exceed and her sister, who both easily returned it before going over to collect her daughter in her arms. "Time feels like it's flying by for me."

They made room for her, Happy and Lisanna did, so that the woman could sit between them on the edge of the bed. As Mira cradled the child, she prompted them both to tell her then, of their job, and they had many different things to say. From Natsu and his typical antics to the troubles they'd had on the journey there, a lot had happened in such a short time.

Mira connected to the sentiment quite well.

They finished their tales though about the same time that the baby began to softly whine from her mother's arms and, opening her eyes, she only stared up at the three of them with discontentment. Happy though grinned widely down on the baby as he stood on the bed and rested his furry paws on Mira's elbow.

"It's kinda like," he floated the idea, as if fearful of rebuke, "I'm the baby's uncle too. Don't you think?"

When Mira smiled and nodded, Lisanna shook her head before reaching over first to press finger gently against Aura's little nose, replying, "No," at the same time. As Happy's face fell and he started to question this though, her hand moved a second time and she patted the feline on the head.

"It's more like you're her cousin," Lisanna explained with a bright grin. "Don't you think?"

And, his smile returning, the cat only nodded his head while the two sister's giggled and the child nestled in Mirajane's arms settled out once more.

He liked the sound of that much better, Happy did.

But time did flow, regardless of how the three of them felt about it, and soon enough, the child' first birthday was upon them. Lisanna was very excited and went on many small jobs, as she planned to spend quite a few jewels on her little niece. Mira cautioned her against it, but her younger sister was insistent. Aura was one of the best things in Lisanna's life currently, she felt, and she wanted to spoil her as frequently as she was able.

Elfman, who'd been on quite a few quests himself recently (though that had more to do with him attempting another bout as S-Class status) was also very intrigued by his niece's upcoming birthday. He held off, even, on a job, just to be around her. And Lucy presented her with a gift, even from her meager earnings, the same as a few others did.

"I will gift her her first weapon," Erza proposed at the hall one day and Mira was pretyt quick to put an end to that.

"Not to use," the scarlet woman huffed, as if offended Mira thought otherwise. "For decoration. To hang above her crib. She will be a warrior."

"Erza, that just doesn't sound too safe, is all," Mira tried.

"When she's two then," the swordswoman decided.

Which gave Mira a whole year to figure out how to break it to Erza that wasn't happening either.

Master Makarov though, he was very excited as well that he'd made it to another year, in general of course, but also of the baby's life.

"She's quite precious," he told Mira with a grin. "Maybe she should stay far away from this place instead. Too precious for us lowly fairies."

"Don't joke, Master," Mira giggled as the man present her with a little stuffed bear for her birthday. "She's a fairy through and through."

It was Freed though that surprised Mirajane, coming over to her house one day when she was not at work and her sibling were both out, to deliver a gift of his own.

"Freed," she remarked in some surprise, when she found him on her porch step before knowing his reasoning. "Is something going on? At the hall? What-"

"Nothing like that, Mirajane," he assured the woman as he stood there as gallantly as he always did, hands clasped tightly behind his back. Bowing his head to her in greeting, he asked simply, "Might I come in?"

"Yes. Of course." Recovering from her shock, Mira moved to take a step aside and allow him entrance. "I didn't even know you knew where I lived."

"Only through passing, I assure you."

"Yes, well-"

"How are you?" he asked then. "I was a bit disappointed you weren't at the hall today."

"I take days off now," she reminded him. "It's been a year, Freed. You'd think you'd remember."

"It's been a busy year," he sighed some, shaking his head before taking to looking around. Swallowing heavily then, he asked, "Where is...the baby?"

"Hmm? Oh, well, she's in her crib, right now. Napping." Even more befuddled then, Mira only made a bit of a face as she shut the door behind her. "Did you…. Do you wanna see her?"

"Well, I have a gift," he explained simply. "To celebrate."

"Celebrate?"

"Her birthday, Mirajane."

"O-Oh." She was even more taken aback then. "I did not even think that you would remember such a thing."

"My memory is quite impeccable," he assured her. "Although, I think I have missed it by a day or so, have I not?"

"Three."

"I apologize. The last job I took threw off my schedule a bit."

"I'm sure you're busy too," she continued on as she moved then, to head down the hallway, Freed quick to fall in step. "What with...Laxus getting married and all."

Freed blinked some before nodding his head, though she couldn't see from behind her, and saying, "His fiancee takes care of most things, pertaining to the wedding, but yes, he has requested my help at times."

"You are who he trusts above all."

"Until his vows are said, of course," the rune mage reminded her. "Then, officially, I am not."

"Well, unofficially, I imagine you always will be."

They were to a door then where Mira stopped and, slowly, opened it. Inside was the standard nursery a young child might have and, hardly glancing around at it, Freed hesitated some in the doorway before following Mira over to the crib.

"She's still resting, I think," the child's mother whispered softly while the man only stood back some, from the crib. "But… Did you wanna hold her? Or?"

"No." And, finally, he did glance around, eyes landing on the window across the room. "I simply wished to present her with something, is all. It is a joyous occasion, after all. The grace period is over. I am sure, growing up in the poverty that you do, you know how sacred and fragile the first year of life is for a child. Not something to be taken lightly. She is healthy, I take it?"

Mira made a bit of a face over at him then. "Freed..."

"Yes?"

"Is there… What did you bring her?"

His arms dropped then, from behind his back, and in one hand he held a shiny, crystal figurine of a dragon, tinted purple in certain spots and yellow in others. As Mira's eyes opened a bit, the man only went over to the window where, between the two curtains, he set the object, facing the beast so that it barred it's gnarled fangs towards the child's crib. His eyes stayed on it, for a moment, watching how the light caught the intricate design of the body and scales of the thing.

It truly did represent the fragility and fearsomeness that was the first year of life.

AS his eyes fell though, Freed felt a darkness come over to him and, when he looked back at Mirajane, her face was...not like anything he'd seen in quite some time.

"Get," she told him quite darkly, "out."

"M-Mira," he tried, "I only-"

"Get out, Freed. Now."

She didn't yell. She didn't scream. But the tone of voice and posture the woman took was more than enough to get the man to bow his head and rush from the room, from the house. His orders had been fulfilled, anyhow.

After he was gone, Mirajane went straight over to the high windowsill and moved to snatch the little figurine down from where the man had placed it. And yes, something stopped her. Gave her a bit of a pause. She couldn't quite say what, but slowly, her hand dropped and her fingers only formed a tight fist, nails digging into the soft flesh of her palm.

For a long few moments, she glared at the figure and she knew, oh, she knew, but what could she do? Instead of anything, really, she only turned to go back over to the crib and watched her daughter. When the baby opened her eyes slightly a minute or so later, the streaks of light that the dragon figurine cast landed perfectly over her and she only reached up for them with a yawn before a few babbles.

Shutting her own eyes then, Mira swallowed down everything she was thinking in that moment before only moving to pick up her daughter.

"Come on, Aura," she whispered as the one-year-old, resting against her mother's shoulder then, only continued to reached behind the woman for those streaks of tinted light. "It's time for lunch."

 


	7. Bliss

Mirajane was never a proponent of the adage 'time heals all wounds'. Because it doesn't. At all. As someone with many mental, emotional, and physical scars from the past, very few every truly went away. You just forget about them, slowly. It doesn't sting as much, with others. But it's still there. Waiting. In the back of your mind. For something to spring it back up.

But she found this wasn't the case with Laxus. After his wedding, he moved away, hardly came by the guild any more, and things just fell into this steady peace. Well, her personal life did. Fairy Tail had it's typical ups and downs, but life felt rather steady for Mirajane. She found a rhythm in parenting and it got better, she found, as her daughter aged. Less sleepless nights and a more interactive being. That was probably the best part. Her daughter was her own person and Mira was so happy to get to know her.

She was careful, however. About the whole Laxus thing. Though he didn't show his face often, he did at times, and she never wanted her daughter to run into him. She wasn't quite sure, still, what to make of Freed's gift and though she'd made up with the rune mage the next day, he'd never explained himself fully, and she was certain that Laxus had some doing in the whole thing. Still, Aura did seem to enjoy the lights that it provided in the sunlight and it didn't hurt anything, anyways, to have it there. Only Lisanna seemed to notice it and Mira only deflected a bit until her sister gave up on her questions.

She felt most sorry, at times, for lying to Lisanna above all the others. She and her sister were rare to do that to one another and Lisanna trusted her, so much, and for Mirajane to be lying about something so huge…

Sigh.

It was never meant to get so muddle. But Mirajane held down a lot of feelings, throughout her whole life. Some good, some bad. But always for a reason that was bigger than herself. And, every time she kept to herself what only she and, apparently, Laxus and Freed, knew about her daughter's paternity, well, she knew she was doing the right thing.

Any time that she doubted it, she thought of how happy Laxus seemed in his new life and how she never wanted her daughter to feel as if she was a burden on someone else.

And he couldn't speak for whether she was or not, but the results? He could speak for those. And oh, he more than enjoyed the results.

Since he was a boy, Laxus found himself to be unlovable. It was why Ivan didn't take him with him when Makarov kicked him out of the guild. It was why Makarov seemed to slowly grow to resent him as much as his father. It was why his mother died. She didn't love him enough or he didn't love her enough and she wasn't able to overcome her sickness because of it.

Of course, as he grew, he realized the incorrect nature in these sorts of thoughts. Ivan was incapable of true love. Makarov did love him, not just his actions. Whether his mother loved him or not had nothing to do with her inability to conquer her illness. Still, it was hard to shake a concept that you had held for so many years. His teenage years had been based around this concept and, even after receiving his redemption, both in the eyes of his guild mates and those of his grandfather, he still struggled with such a concept. Love. It was foreign to him at that point and though he felt as if he expressed it in some ways, towards his guild (in general; most of those idiots up there could get fucked), the Thunder Legion, and...even his grandfather, fine, but still, it never felt whole. It never felt true.

Not until he met Tasha.

"Sometimes," Freed said, as if in concessions for his two cohorts as well, in toast at the slayer's wedding, "the right person walks into your life and you just know it. There is no denying it. There is no hiding it. You feel it. And any of us who have known Laxus these few years know that, finally, definitely, with complete certainty, he knows it."

Laxus, though he wouldn't have found the words in order to say such a thing, did feel it, at least. Part of being unlovable for so long was being unable to give it himself. And though he found ways around this with his grandfather, guild, and bodyguards, women were always…

Heh.

It wasn't something he took pride in anymore or even really liked to think about, but he just wasn't a great guy. Before. Before Tasha. Before a lot of things, honestly. But he'd slowly been losing that mentality for a few years and, by the time he met her, was ready, probably, for what he had now. It was all conditioning, after all, life was. You fail and fail and fail until you figure it out. No different than learning a new skill. He certainly wasn't a master of anything yet, but he felt as if he was finally on the right path and, with Tasha at his side, he'd probably end up a lot better than he would if she wasn't there.

He'd had women, fine, before, that thought they loved him. That thought they cared about him. That tried to present themselves as doing so, but it was never right. And though try as all three might, the Thunder Legion just never rightly seemed to provide what he was needing. Makarov either. But Tasha, who didn't know him from anything, just gave him this overwhelming feeling of comfort and security, that night they first laid together. It was different than anything he'd ever felt before.

She was special.

Tasha was very special.

"Do you really think," she's complained to him that night, when this all came gushing out of him, and the woman, just as worldly as he it seemed, only made a face, "that I'm going to fall for something like that?"

No.

No.

Gosh, he didn't even want to say it. Why would he think she'd believe it? When he was still coming to grips with it himself?

She didn't believe him either, a few months later, when he explained to her how things were before. Before her. Everything before her was now in the before time period. All rolled up into one.

"Na-ah," she remarked with a grin as they sat across from one another at a tiny restaurant they were getting some breakfast at. "You did not leave that girl there."

"I did so," he said before, with a frown, he added, "and she wasn't a girl."

"You said she was nineteen, right?"

"Right."

"She was a girl."

"I was eighteen!"

"And you were a little boy who ditched a poor girl in some town she didn't know because-"

"Because we got all the way there and she started complaining about how she wanted to go somewhere else and fuck her, honestly, because I saved a lot for that trip-"

"Didn't you say you only brought her-"

"Because someone else canceled, yes."

"Laxus."

"What?"

"You're getting worked up," she said with a bit of a laugh, maybe, but it didn't feel mocking. She was right, anyways. Just the thought of that stupid… Still, Tasha only cocked her head some as she grinned softly. "Look at you. Your shoulders are getting all hunched and-"

"It's annoying," he admitted to her. "Even after all these years."

"Doesn't matter anyways."

"What do you mean?"

"You're not that you anymore," she explained. "You know? You're someone different. You wouldn't leave a nineteen year old girl in some random town now, would you?"

"I wouldn't be with a nineteen year old girl, so that solves a lot of the problems, yeah."

"Well, the big one at least."

"But you're right," he agreed, shaking off the thoughts of that time then. "It doesn't matter. At all."

"Well, at all is kind of final, isn't it?" She was toying with him then, he could tell by her tone, but let her continue a she asked, "How can I trust you? Huh? Not to leave me stranded some place? Because I don't agree with every little thing you say?"

"You could start with agreeing with every little thing I say."

"But you wouldn't like that much, would you? Lax?"

He might.

But still, he shrugged as he said, "I wouldn't do it to you anyways. I...you know."

For a moment, he got her eyes before she went back to the food in front of her, finished with torturing him for the moment apparently. Still, she added before she took another bite, "I know."

Things just felt so...easy when he was around her. Tasha. She understood his limits and didn't push him passed them. She didn't have to. Eventually, he'd always manage to come around to getting through them on his own. It didn't all have to be immediate with her. She was willing to wait.

It wasn't a trait many people truly possessed.

But she seemed so content in the place that they were. In a way that he always tried to imitate, in his previous relationships. He wanted to seem cool and aloof, but she pulled it off so much smoother. Because she truly felt that way. He'd never been in a relationship where he wasn't the mos apathetic towards it. An entirely new experience for sure.

Marriage didn't change much, honestly. No more than it should, at least. He feared it, dreaded it, even, once the day approached ever closer, but part of that was twinged, he was certain, with that damn mess Mirajane Strauss got him all tangled up in. Even the day of, he was a wreck because of the whole thing and worried and confused and just out of it, honestly.

But then Tasha was there, like she was always there, before him, and it didn't matter anymore. What was going on around them. All of his idiot friends and all of hers that couldn't stand him. She looked so beautiful in her dress and he didn't cry because, ha, never, but…

He never planned to have another moment like that in his life.

She really was his one and only.

Mira didn't show up to the wedding, which Laxus wasn't sure what to make of, but hardly thought of it outside of seeing her dorky siblings and her nowhere to be found. Well, he knew where she was, at least, no doubt with her child, but still. Freed had told him she hadn't received the gift well and, honestly, he had a good feeling that he and Mirajane would never be what they were, back when they felt so connected. Not just the lack of...intimate things either.

They had been friends. Truly, they were. Not in the way that they'd always kind of been friendly towards one another, even during his dark period, but in a real way. She wasn't up to Thunder Legion status or anything, but he and Mira… She got him too, in some ways, but it was different. Mira was a lot like him. They came from a similar background. They conquered the same demons. They were meant to be friendly in some way or another.

Just…

After all that had happened…

She'd gotten what she'd wanted, anyways, he reminded himself whenever he thought of the barmaid. And that was what the entire thing had been about in the end, hadn't it? That was what was important.

Besides, after the wedding, he had a lot of more important things to think about. The change of scenery did wonders for his mind as well. After their extended honeymoon, they came back to their new house and just were for a bit. Then he had to get back to jobs and he had Freed do it for him, at first, bring jobs to him that sounded as if he would be interested in them, but he did eventually find his way back into the Fairy Tail halls.

He saw Mirajane, of course, but she didn't speak to him, at all, and he avoided her and that was just how it had to be. IT was the new peace, it seemed. His life started anew when he met Tasha, even more so now that he had married her, and Mirajane just wasn't going to be a factor in this new life at all.

It wasn't like he forgot that he had a daughter though.

No. That wasn't something one forgot.

But it was something easily pushed aside and ignored. Especially when you're able to rationalize doing so. Which Laxus more than was. Mira was a good mother, one that wanted to do it all alone, and he never really wanted a kid anyways. Plus, he had a new life now, one that he was intent on keeping together, and that would just be unnecessary drama. And who wants to drag a kid into all that?

Not him.

Fathers weren't worth it anyways. Laxus was an expert on that. Mothers was where it was all at.

Until they died and left you with your batshit paternal family.

No.

Mira's kid was much better without all that. The stigma of the Dreyar name. What it meant. What it carried. The Strauss siblings they were...well, they were pretty fucked in the head and the poor kid wasn't gonna be much better, probably, but she'd still be better off than if she got stuck with a Dreyar. At least Strausses were happy.

Laxus had never met a happy Dreyar.

Not one.

Tasha felt pretty happy as one though, it seemed. She seemed to have been in a bit of a slump, before the wedding, with her works, but claimed a strike of creativity not soon after their wedding and, well, that was just fine with Laxus, as he needed to get back to the road life for a bit anyways. It was comfortable, that first year. A few fights, fine, but who didn't have those? And the second was different too, because he too some time off again, and they were around one another constantly there, for a few months, but it was nice. In it's own way. A lot of bickering, at times, but that was good, he was pretty sure. Healthy.

It was that third year though, that things changed a bit again. Because, while it all felt pretty whirlwind at first, they were pretty normal by that point, she felt, in their life plans. And it was time to add on to that.

They'd talked about it before, after all. A lot. Before marriage, after it. But never with such certainty. Tasha wanted to begin to try to have a baby, and soon. Laxus was a bit more apprehensive, she could tell, but she seemed to chalk it up to his childhood or something, as she wanted to talk a lot about that then, but it wasn't any of that. It wasn't even that Laxus didn't want to have a child with her. Because he did. Oh, he desperately did.

But…

Life was weird. It seemed to love to trip you up on your own thoughts and statements. Laxus had vowed to never lie to Tasha, and tried to keep true to that (by coming clean, eventually, when he always seemed to fall short), but now he was faced with the one thing that he swore to never tell her. And why should he? Just because it was bothering him? Why was it bothering him, even, anyways? Had he not been the one to claim that  _Mirajane_  was the one with the daughter? Not him. That he didn't have anything. Until, eventually, he would, but with Tasha. He thought those things, yes? Agreed to them?

How can you cheat yourself out of an agreement?

Because it didn't matter how many times you go through it. It didn't matter how you planned it out. Life always had a way of proving you wrong. There was some greater power, one that Laxus couldn't even imagine, that was at play. He knew it. And whatever it was, it loved to fuck with his head at the worst times.

He just kept thinking about he'd have a kid, one that he loved and cared about and...and he'd have one that he didn't. One that was just out there, without him. Who, fine, was being loved and cared for, but by someone who wasn't him. And that was okay. Really, it was. But...it was also…

When he was a boy, he had this favorite little stuffed teddy bear that he liked to carry around. It was his favorite out of all the others. But sometimes, he'd let one of the others sleep in bed with the two of them. The stuffed dog or the monkey. Because in his mind, he thought that they must be jealous, knowing they weren't the favorite and constantly being forced to realize this.

What would happen? Huh? If it ever got out? That he had a kid who he treasured and one that he just abandoned? Two that maybe might even go to the same guild? Oh, man, he was considering that now too. Having your half-sibling be there, the whole time. Maybe even the only sibling you'd ever have. So close. He didn't have siblings, but he felt like to be denied one, only to realize they were always there…

What would Mirajane do?

What would he do?

What would Freed bitch and moan about what he should do?

His mind hadn't raced so much in so long. Tasha had washed away all conflicting thoughts, but now, without being able to go to her with all of this, well…

He was left to his own devices again. And he'd never been very good at controlling himself.

Laxus was, at his heart, irrational. Prone to suggestion. He could be cold and calculating. Honestly, he could. But more of his big moments in life were fed off poorly planned out impulses. He could fend them off most of the time, but eventually…

Tasha kept up about it too. She wanted to start trying. She really did. And it broke him a bit more, to keep ghosting her on the concept. To even tell her, flat out, that he didn't think it was a good time. He didn't have anything to back this up, but it didn't matter, because he said it and she only sighed, patient as always, believing it would be soon that he'd come around. He would have, too, already come around, definitely, if he didn't have that terrible secret looming over his head.

One afternoon, they were both kind of lounging in bed and she got to talking about it again and he just couldn't take it. He had to do something.

And he had to do it then.

"Laxus?" she called after him as, without saying much, he only got to his feet and left her behind in their bed. "What are you doing? Where are you going?"

"Out," was his only answer.

She didn't press.

He wouldn't have told her anyways.

Back in Magnolia, Mira was having a pretty normal day. After work, she went and got Aura from where she was hanging out in the park with Lucy, Happy, and Natsu that day, being a very big helper, she assured her mother, in counting his push ups and watched Lucy summon spirits. Of course, at three, she could only count up to ten, and only a bit iffy on that, and Lucy's summoning got boring fast too, so she quickly ditched off to play around with Happy. He liked to produce his wings and fly her around, much to the complaints of Lucy.

It had been a great day for her.

Mira's a bit less, honestly, but it was over soon, she knew, as her daughter was usually in bed a little after seven. Just a few more hours and she would he alone in the house and could just relax.

Aura wanted pickles for dinner and only pickles, but settled for a sandwich with a pickle on the side, and Mira was pretty grateful for that. Lisanna, the last of her two siblings to still stay in their home, had just taken a pretty lengthy job with Elf, and it was only supposed to be her and her daughter for a good while, at home. She loved her siblings, her sister especially, both dearly, but… There was something nice about being alone with just your kid. A chance to bond, even, in little ways.

She made a mess though, Aura did, at bath time, and she didn't particularly like when her mother made her sit still and comb out all the knots in her blonde locks before bed and she wanted every story under the sun read to her before she fell asleep, but eventually, finally, she conked out and Mira only took a few moments out, watching her do so, before she left the room, gently shutting the door behind her.

The day was finally hers and all she wanted to do was stretch out some, on the couch, and not do much of anything. She was in the middle of that, doing the nothing, when there was a knocking at the front door.

Mira considered very heavily not answering it. When they knocked again though, she knew she had to before it awoke her daughter and, ugh, she'd just never get her back down again.

Nothing could have prepared her for it. Nothing could have let her know that she'd just lived the last day of her calm, peaceful life as a single mother. Nothing.

Laxus was on the other side of that door, of course, and Mira wasn't even able to savior it. The last few seconds of bliss that the life she'd crafted so far for her daughter had been. Once she opened that door, after all, there was no going back.

Because the first thing out of Laxus' mouth as he outright ignored her shocked expression and the way she stammered his name there, for a moment, in her surprise.

"I need," was all he told her with a dark air about his voice, "to see my daughter."


	8. Avow

The memory felt as fresh as any experience she'd had in the past hour. She could smell the rot from the bodies that had yet to be buried and she could feel the heat, as though the summer sun had long set, the ground seemed to radiate all it had absorbed through the day. She was seated in the grass, outside of the tiny hut, inside of which they tended to her father in his final moments. She was very young, too young, even, to be dealing with such a situation, but you were never the one to get to decide those things.

Her siblings were back at home, with one of the elders in the village, where they slept with the promise that they could see their father in the morning. It was a lie though and Mira knew this, as it was certain to all that her father wouldn't make it through the night. The illness had spread and enveloped him completely.

His time was more limited than them all.

"You should go home, child," one of the women told her wearily as she sat with her, both listening as the moans of her father drowned out any sounds of the clear night. "The morning will be long. And every day after it. Go rest. You'll find little of it after this."

But Mira refused. She sat out there, in the hot soil, listening. She heard every whimper and cry of the man. It was how she heard it when, with some of the last words he would ever speak, he called out for her.

"I need," he begged with the sound of heavy fluid on his longs, "to see my daughter."

She heard it though, from out there. She also heard as they cautioned him against this and told him to just lay down. No one should see their father in that way. It shouldn't be the last image you have of any loved one, really.

But as the woman beside her reached to grab her arm, the young girl slipped away from her and rushed right into the hut. She always came when her father called.

Always.

He a mess of a man then, drenched in sweat and with only a blanket keeping him modest. He hadn't gotten the pox that went along with the sickness, like some in the village did, like her mother had, but the smell of his unwashed body mixed with all the things inside of him that he'd expelled through the past two days he'd been in that tiny hut burned her nostrils and, at the sight of her, one of the men inside tried to turn her away, but she went to her father's side, falling beside where he was laid on a pallet on the floor.

He was the last of the infected in village and, though others had been on close proximity to others during that time period, it only seemed to infect a select few. No one knew why that was or how it chose its victims, but considering her had nursed her mother through her death and her father before these past few days, as he was on his last leg, her immunity was unofficially confirmed. At the very lest by village standards.

"Janie," he breathed at the sight and fell back against his pallet once more. Calmed, it seemed. "Janie."

"Papa," she sniffled as, reaching for his much larger hand, she held it both of hers and stared at him, eyes stinging a bit, as she looked the man over for what would be the last time. "Please, stay. Please. Don't go."

There were others in the tiny shack, but most left then, other than the town's doctor, who stood over them silently. She was sure that there was more to it, that at least someone said something ot her, told her to leave, but she couldn't recall if they did at that point. All she could remember was stroking his hand and begging him not to leave her. To not leave her alone.

"Shhh," he finally whispered as he turned his head to look at her and it was from him that she and her sister got their striking blue eyes, but his had lost their light then. "It'll be okay."

No. It wouldn't. She knew it wouldn't. It hadn't been okay since the outbreak first struck. Things had only gotten worse since then. And, soon enough, they'd become the worst she'd experience in her life until many years later, when she'd lose her sister as well.

She hadn't cried, Mira hadn't, yet. She felt like it at times. But she hadn't. She felt too sad too, most of the time, in that horrible stretch of about two months where her entire world was shattered. It was already so pitiful, before, but it felt hopeless then. Even when she lost her mother, not two weeks back then, it hadn't felt so terrible. She loved the woman, she loved her dearly, but she'd always thought that her father was the strongest man in the world. To see him, as he was then, to know that he would never be the way she always pictured him again…

As her tears fell on his hand though, he only gently shook it free of hers and reached up, with his filthy and stained one, to reach up and cup her cheek, listening as she sobbed. It was the last thing he heard, over his own wheezing. When his hand fell, so did she, to his chest, crying and sobbing and screaming like the kid she was. For the last time she was. Because when she'd dry her eyes and head back to her own shack, where Elfman and Lisanna both were, neither knowing that, finally, they were all three officially orphaned, she couldn't be a kid anymore. Not when she had two other ones to take care of.

But Mirajane didn't cry for the loss of her childhood, she couldn't recall every truly doing that, but rather because she'd just lost the one person she'd thought she'd always had. That she'd had since she'd come into the world. He'd always liked to tell her about it, the day she came into the world. And how he held her first and helped clean her off some, before presenting her to her mother. HE loved his other kids, she knew that. Of course he did. Elfman was his only son and Lisanna was his little baby, but it had been Mira that he called out for, in those final moments and though she never shared this with her sister, she thought about it as frequently as she did the time of day.

Her father was the most important relationship in her life before his death. And following. Though at times the things she did she knew would only upset him, she thought of him frequently and missed him terribly. Every day. She'd lost a lot in her life. Her mother, her father, her village. All things, when she was young, she loved dearly. If, as with Lisanna, she got a chance to have one of the three back though, she would chose him.

Every time.

As she stared at Laxus, with a determination in his eyes, part of her remembered that time, when her father was her world. But not a very big par. A bigger part thought much more about how Aura was hers. And no one else's.

"What are you talking about? Laxus?" She tried to keep her voice down, but it was difficult. "Who is your-"

"Mirajane-"

"I don't know what you-"

"Don't play dumb with me. Because I know you're not. You know exactly what I'm talking about," the man told her stiffly. "And you're going to let me see her. Right now."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. You- Don't you close this door in my-"

"Laxus-"

"No, Mirajane. No. I let you have your little game for three years. Now-"

"My little game?"

"Yours."

They had a glare going then, the pair of them did, and Mirajane thought about breaking. About crying. That would get Laxus to leave, at least for a little bit, but for some reason, her ability to do so felt dried up in that moment and she couldn't even get out a sniffle.

Finally, Laxus broke first as he looked off before whispering, "Look, Mira, just don't make this more than it has to be."

"It's not anything, Laxus."

"You can't lie to me. I know."

"You don't know anything."

"I smelled her, Mira."

That one caught her off guard and she took a step back then, frowning. "You what?"

"Everyone has a scent, Mirajane," he grumbled as he glared at her. "And she has some of mine on her. I would know. That day...that day you took her up to the guildhall… I knew. I would recognize my own scent."

She deflated some, he saw then, before looking off as well while she thought. He tried to take a step forwards then, but Mira still stood in his way.

"She's asleep," she said suddenly and he only snorted.

"Mira-"

"She is. What do you want me to do, Laxus? Wake her up? It's late. You-"

"So she is my daughter then?" he challenged and, with a groan, Mira took some steps back and allowed him entrance.

"Keep," she hissed at him still though and she didn't sound anything like her cheerful, peppy self that she promoted up at the guildhall, "your voice down. She really is asleep."

Laxus, who'd never been in the Strauss home, only took a few moments out to look around. When his eyes fell back to Mirajane's, hers were just as dark as his had been when he arrived. But he'd cooled off some, just a tad, as the adrenaline wore off and he became more nervous energy began to fill his body. The impulse had led him here, but now it was leaving him here and he'd crossed the point of no return.

"So?" Mira, apparently, was tired of his silence. "What do you want, Laxus?"

"I told you what I wanted."

"Laxus-"

"Did you think that I'd just never bring this up? Ever?"

"Yeah, I kind of did considering you've spent the past three years not caring."

"Who says I didn't care?"

"Considering you hightailed it out of the guild and never spoke to me about it-"

"Why did you lie to me? Mirajane?" He wasn't going to be wrung through the ringer when she, clearly, was the one that was actually at fault. "You tried to hid my child from me. I'm not the bad guy here. You are."

"How am I the bad guy?"

"How are you not?" he challenged right back and, wow, he didn't realize just how pissed he was at her until that moment, but he truly was. She had lied to him, kept something from him. Something important. And even if they weren't really friends after all, even if they weren't even really guild mates, that was a horrible thing to keep from another person. "You hid my daughter from me, Mira."

"She's not your daughter."

"Mira-"

"What do you want me to say, Laxus?'

"I want you to tell me the truth."

"Why? Since you seem to know it so well yourself, what difference does it make what I-"

"Why didn't you just tell me?" he asked. They were standing in her living room, but Mira seemed equally as out of place as he did. "Huh? Everything we said to each other and did… I wanted a kid too. We agreed-"

"I was going to tell you," she cut him off. "But-"

"When? Huh? When were you going to-"

"When you came back home," she kept up. "But you wanted to tell me that you and… That you'd met someone and I just..."

"Mira," he started, but that was as far as he got as he didn't know what else to say. Only stared at her.

Shaking her own head, the woman replied, "It just shocked me. At first. You came back, all happy and-"

"And you thought it was a good idea to...to what? Punish me? By hiding my daughter from me?"

"Stop saying that."

"It's true."

"According to you, you knew the first time you saw her so, at most, I hid her for a month. You could have brought any of this up at any time. You chose not to, Laxus. You. Not me."

"You're good at it, aren't you?" He snorted. "Making yourself look like the victim?"

"I'm not the victim. I know that I did wrong. But you-"

"I'm not yelling at you, Mira," he grumbled, "about these past three years. I'm telling you that, right now, starting now, I want to see my daughter."

"Why?" she got out then. "Why now, Laxus?"

He let out a short huff of breath through his nose before remarking, "It's none of your business, Mira, but...my wife and I are going to be trying for a baby soon."

She blinked then, still confused, she asked, "And? What difference does that make? Go have that kid with her, Laxus. You'll like it a lot better. Just leave this alone."

"I can't." He was able to look her in the eyes, finally, as he said, "Before I have another kid, I at least have to let this one know I exist."

"What difference does it make, Laxus? She doesn't need you. She has me. She's fine."

"I know she is," he assured her. "But I need this. I can't… I can't go forward with having more children until I get this one take care of."

"But she is taken care of."

"Yeah, Mira, I know, but not by me."

"I don't want you-"

"It doesn't matter what you want." And there. That was the heart of the matter. What he'd been skating around. It was the truth too. "It doesn't matter-"

"She's my daughter, Laxus."

"She's our daughter," he corrected. "Mira."

She wanted to kick him out. He could tell. There was something dark in her eyes

That wasn't his fault. It was hers. then and he could feel her shift from annoyance from anger. But he didn't care. Because he was angry too. And he was far more in his right to be than she ever was.

Mirajane had caused this situation. Not him. And fine, he was the one pushing it to forefront, but it wouldn't have happened if she'd just been honest with him. Literally at any point during the past few years, if she'd just come out and said something, they wouldn't be in the situation that they were now.

"I've thought," he continued then, in a softer tone, "a lot about this. For weeks. Since the beginning of it, really. And fine, at first I thought that...that I didn't… But something's come over me. And if another kid I'm going to have will have a father, why shouldn't this one?"

"She doesn't need-"

"Everyone needs their father, Mira."

"You didn't," she argued. "You were better off without Ivan."

"But I would have been better with a real father."

"Laxus-"

"I'm not saying that I want to take your kid from you," he told her. "I'm saying that I should at least get to see and speak with her. To have her know that she's my child. I have rights in this, Mira."

"Why? Because your nose tells you so?"

He was almost snarky back, but then, instead, something clicked in his mind and he said, "My contract says I do."

Mira was caught off guard it seemed as she asked, "What are you-"

"The contract. We signed a contract when we made this kid. I have rights to her." Yes. Of course. Then, more confident now, he said, "She's mine and you know it. If I challenged you to bring me her real father, you couldn't. Because it's me. You know it's me. You signed a contract with me that, if we had a child, I had certain rights to it. Some of which you've already violated. So don't make me push the issue further, Mira. You won't like the results."

He felt so in the right then and Mira almost seemed concerned. Almost. Her mind was just as sharp as his, it seemed and, with a shrug, she spoke.

"Prove it."

"Prove what?"

"Prove that there's a contract."

"What?"

"If we were both in a court of law," she reasoned, "and you said there's a contract and I say there isn't and neither of us produce the contract, then it's nonexistent. So? Do you have it?"

Sour then, he only said, "Don't get this way, Mira."

"You're the one that-"

"I'm not going away." And they'd reached the end then, it seemed, of their conversation. Laxus started walk then, away from her, and out of the house. "I want this. Now. It's my right. Contract or no contract, I know you, Mirajane. You had your fun, you got your time with her. Now I want some of it too. Whatever terms you have to come to with this, do it. Soon. I'll be back."

Mira wanted to say something. She needed to say something. She could feel it too, her control slipping and everything was happening so fast and she felt like this was all a dream. That she'd just fallen asleep, that was all. And was having a nightmare.

Her stomach was in her throat and the sight of him, with his back to her, almost to the door, only made her tear up, but she wouldn't cry. She couldn't cry.

But she could speak, suddenly.

It just wasn't what she wanted to say.

"Do you even know what she looks like? Laxus?"

That got him to pause and, shrugging his shoulders, the man hardly glanced over them as he remarked, "No. I only saw her that once."

"Did you… Do you really want to? Because you don't have to, you know. If you want everyone know...for her to know… Then she can. Without this. You can just go home and not see her and she'll be just as well off. She doesn't need someone else in her life. She has me and Elf and Lisanna and all my friends-"

"A father's different, Mira." He whispered it, but he meant it. "Than a mother."

She knew. Oh, she knew.

"Do you really want her to have one though?" she countered. "Or is this just to help clear your conscious? Because don't… If you don't want to be there for her, just don't. Don't ever. But don't get her used to something and then pull it out from under her. And your wife-"

"Tasha has nothing to do with this."

"But she will. I mean, gosh, Laxus, what does she even think?"

He was silent then and a different part of Mira would be so thrilled with such juicy insider info. But the side of her that was now a mother who was, at least in some way, now part of Laxus and his personal life, felt an even heavier weight placed upon her.

"How could you not tell her before you came here?"

"I don't think I should take marriage advice from someone who hid a kid from a man-"

"I did it for you, Laxus."

"Are serious right now? You did it because you...you… I don't know why you did it! But I know-"

"I said to keep your voice-"

"Why did you do this? Why did you let me think-"

"You came back, Laxus, on the day I was going to tell you and..."

"And what? What did I-"

"You met someone else." Finally, the anger dropped out of her voice and Mira sounded more human. "I was waiting to tell you, but you came back and were talking about meeting someone else and-"

"I couldn't meet someone else, Mira, because you weren't someone to begin with."

It sounded harsher than he intended, but it was what he was thinking and it fell out of his mouth then, as he turned to look at her. But Mira only nodded some at his statement.

"I know."

"Then-"

"But it scared me. Because you came back so...happy and if I told you then..."

"You fucked everything up because you were scared?"

"Isn't that why everyone does?"

He didn't know what to say. And Mira was out of things too then. They were just both defeated in their own mess. Eventually though, Mira took a deep breath.

"She's sleeping," was what she repeated once more, "but if you wanted to…see her, then..."

If he had left then, after his big blow up, and gone back to Tasha, gone back to his life, the impulse might have completely died and he might have decided he'd made a mistake. He might have just gotten off on exposing Mirajane and then deciding against actually doing anything with the child. Just letting it known to Mira that, yes, he did know and he would come back , if he wanted, and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

But if Mira's world changed the second she opened the door, Laxus' did the second he followed Mirajane down the tiny hall and to the little girls' room. When she opened the door, he could see her in there. The sun was setting, red and orange hues illuminating the room just enough so that he could see her. There. She was sleeping, as Mira said, cuddled up under some blankets on her bed. And he could smell it too. He had the second he had come into the house, though it was much more faint. Now, in her room, around her, when he sniffed deep enough, she was all he could smell.

His daughter.

"Do you even know her name?" Mira whispered as they stood there, in her doorway. "Laxus? It's Aura."

His chest felt tight, but he was able to whisper, "Aura," as he eyes only stayed on her. Then, swallowing, he repeated it once more. "Aura."

It was too loud though, that time, and from her bed the girl stirred some, lifting her head. Mira froze then, holding her own breath, hoping that she just go back to sleep.

But things never worked that way.

"Mommy?" came this childlike plea and Mira moved forwards automatically, to go tend to her, while Laxus only hung back, watching.

"Aura," her mother whispered as she came to bend down and brush the girl's hair back. "It's alright. I was just checking on you. Go back to-"

Laxus shuffled then, in the hall, making just enough noise to not only make Mira acknowledge him, but also to get Aura to glance over. At the sight of him, she sat up in even more surprise and maybe he should have been offended, Laxus should have, but he only stood there. Silent. Watching.

Mira gave him a look too, for drawing such attention to himself, but it was too late then, it seemed and, still bending over her daughter, she only nodded towards the man and said, "This is Mommy's friend. Laxus. He's from Fairy Tail."

That relaxed the girl, almost instantly it seemed, but not as much as when Mira finished.

"He's Master's grandson."

"Master," Aura whispered and, smiling, she spoke then to the first time to her father and added, "Hi."

He felt hot then, Laxus did, and his stomach hurt. His eye were watery. His head was aching. He felt like he was dying.

"Hi," he whispered back and the little girl giggled and he had to leave. He had to go then. It was as he turned to though that his eyes caught a strange pattern of light trickling in and, looking over at the window, he saw it there, still, all those years later. His statue. Watching over her the whole time.

"I have to go," he told Mira, but she only stayed by her daughter and he headed right back out of the house, to get away from them. To get away from it.

But Mira didn't have the same luxury.

She pressed a bunch of kisses to Aura's golden head and, eventually, the girl drifted right off. The second she had, Mira went and got her communication lacrima and convinced Lisanna to ditch Elfman and come home immediately. Elf wanted to come too, since Mira was clearly distraught, but she insisted he stay and finish the job.

Plus...she really wanted to talk to her sister. Without him there. It was the only thing she wanted.

Laxus though, he had to go home. He had to face the music. And the train ride there did little to help his already queasy stomach. He must have looked like death when he arrived home, slipping out of his coat and walking through the darkened house. His wife wasn't in their bedroom though, but did find the light on in her office. That place reeked too, but of paint and her.

The two were pretty mutually exclusive.

"Go away," was all she said, her back to him as she stood before an easle, not even turning as he opened the door. "I'm busy. What's the rule?"

"Tasha-"

"The door is closed and that means-"

"Tasha." His voice broke some too and got her to turn that time, to look at him. He usually would girl at the sight of her hair up in the messy bun and how, when she was curious about something, her nose scrunched up and...and…

"What?" She knew him too and could tell then that something was very wrong. She rushed right over to him then, stepping around all the junk she kept in the room, nearly tripping on the way. "Laxus? What happened? Are you okay?"

But he couldn't look her in the eyes. It was impossible. Instead, he focused on something passed her as he reached out, grasping her shoulders in his hands and began...began...began what he could make of the situation that Mira had gotten him- That he'd helped get himself in. That he'd only perpetuated for years at that point.

Mirajane wasn't without her punishment as well though because, a few hours later, when Lisanna arrived back home, she had a lot to unload too. It wasn't nearly as unpleasant, but it still both sisters in tears and Lisanna had never felt so betrayed by her sister. Never once. Mira didn't hide things from her. And yet, somehow, she'd hidden the largest thing in the world form her.

Lisanna slunk off to her room and Mira only pulled the covers over her head, wishing to wake up and it all be different. But it wouldn't be. It couldn't be. All because she'd been too scared, when the time came, to tell Laxus the truth, and every instance afterwards that she had the chance to.

Laxus felt much the same, in his home, alone then. Because he came clean. Completely clean. He told her every single thing that he knew currently and had more than suspected previously. Tasha...didn't take it too well.

When she left, Laxus sulked, for a long time. Cursed them all. Mira, her child, even himself. Then, eventually, after downing a few beers, he got on his communication lacrima and requested the presence of the only people that would give him shit for what had happened.

Mostly because the one that would give him shit over it had long known and the other two were too fearful to rebuke him in such a way.

They did nothing to make him feel better though. And, as he passed out that night, Laxus' wish was much like Mira's. Only he wished he'd never gone and meddled in what was much better undisturbed. Or, even, not fucking around with Mirajane to begin with.

It was definitely all her fault.

Tasha didn't come back that night. Or the next morning. Afternoon either. And Laxus wanted to go look for her, he was sure she was with her family or one of her friends, but knew that would be no good. She always gave him his space. It was time to grant her hers.

Now that things were out though, Laxus knew there was one thing he could go do. That he had to go do. Because he trusted Freed, Bickslow, and Ever to keep anything he told them secret, but Mira was cornered now and he figured she'd start telling her side of things soon enough and, well, there was one person that he wanted to hear his first.

Makarov, understandably, was not pleased. Laxus saw him over at his home, where the elderly man spent more and more time as oppose to his guild and they had the conversation out on his back porch. The man had been shocked to see his grandson, the good kind.

Until he told his truth.

"Laxus," he whispered softly as he only shook his head in disbelief. "How could you know this for so long? And hide it from me?"

"Gramps-"

"I would give anything to have those years with you again. When you were that young. And you just wasted them."

"Mira didn't want-"

"Who is Mirajane Strauss then? To dictate what you do with your child?"

Letting out a long breath, Laxus only watched his grandfather as he whispered, "I just...I hate this. I hate it all."

The old man sighed himself, shaking his head once more. "It's not all bad. The child...Aura… My granddaughter."

And he started laughing then, the slight old man did, until he cried. Laxus watched silently, instead tilting his head up and staring at the sky.

How many times would he fail? Before he got things right?

After his grandfather's, Laxus went to the Strauss home once more, a good few hours earlier than the day before. He wasn't so certain the girl wouldn't already be in bed this time, but he had hope.

It wasn't Mira that answered the door though this time. Instead, Lisanna glared from the other side of the doorway at him and seemed, somehow, even more reluctant to let him in than her sister had.

"I came to see-"

"Mira's not here."

"That's not who I-"

"Aunt Lisanna!" And there she was Aura. She popped up from behind the woman, grinning as she hung onto the woman's hip. Peeking out from behind her, she giggled as she announced quite proudly, "That's Look-seez. Mommy friend."

And Mommy friends were always welcome.

Always.

Lisanna glared at him though before saying, "You shouldn't be here without Mirajane, Laxus."

He only frowned right back though. "I wasn't the one that caused this, Lisanna. Your sister-"

"I'm not really happy with her right now either, so we're even."

"Then just let me in." He could only shrug at the woman. "What do you think I'm going to do?"

She wasn't sure. Of anything, really. Still, Lisanna seemed hesitant as she opened the door more and Aura, starting to pick up on her aunt's emotions, eyed Laxus a bit more suspiciously now as he came into the house. Laxus did nothing to alleviate her fears. He wasn't much for smiling in normal circumstances. That day definitely wasn't one that he felt like giving one up. But he did hold his hand out to the girl, once he was there, in her living room, and slowly, Aura reached out to take it.

Laxus only wrapped his much bigger one around hers as he shook it, getting a giggle from the little girl. To her, he said, "I'm Laxus. Like your mother told you last night. And...and I think we might be spending a lot of time together, now, maybe. Some, at least."

Lisanna watched silently, ready to kick him right back out the door if the time called for it, but, after a moment's thought, Aura only retracted her hand before asking,

"Do you know Go Fish?"

"How to play, you mean?" Laxus asked with a frown. She was a bit hard to understand, as all young children are, for someone unaccustomed with their speech patterns. When she nodded, he only shrugged, looking to Lisanna before right in the girl's eyes as he said, "Yeah. I guess I do."

And she ran off to get her cards.

It was only after he was seated on the floor, with his legs crossed, with the reluctant Lisanna and the excited Aura that he learned the girl, however, had no idea how to play. But she definitely got the gist of the game.

"Gimme your cards, Look-seez."

How could he refuse?

When Mira came home to find them there, Lisanna once more attempting to explain the rules, Aura hording nearly all the cards, and Laxus looking very confused as to what the point of it all was, she didn't smile. She couldn't smile. But as her daughter jumped up to greet her (still carrying most of her cards with her, dropping some of them along the way), she didn't hate the sight of her sister and Laxus' eyes both watching them.

Just wished she didn't feel so tired at the sight.

Laxus didn't stay long after that and Lisanna still seemed distant form her sister, but Aura wanted to tell the whole thing to her mother that night before bed.

"Look-seez s'not very good at Go Fish," she accused with a shake of her head as her mother sat at her bed side, slicking back her hair. "I helped 'im."

"Did you?"

"Mmmhmm."

"Do you like Laxus? Aura?"

It wasn't like she had a lot to go on. Or was a very deep thinker at her age. But still, with a grin, her daughter nodded her head.

"Lots," she assured Mira and, looking down at her hands, she tried hard to not let her voice break as a few tears finally dripped down, speckling the pale white flesh of the back of her hands.

"Good," she whispered as her daughter, unaware, only hoped that she could see him again soon, to play again. "That's so good, baby."


	9. Extend

Tasha didn't stay away forever, of course. How could she? Eventually she came back, but she was no more pleased than she'd been when she left. Laxus happened to be home, fixing himself something to eat, but at the sound of her entering, he debated whether he was supposed to just toss the food. Pretend he was too broken up about everything to eat.

Then he figured for one, she wouldn't buy it, and for two, lying had been what got him into the whole mess.

She came into the kitchen and just stood there, staring at him, waiting it seemed like. And he stared back at her, sandwich in hand, also waiting. But their eyes were locked and he felt relieved, somehow, just from seeing her.

"Did you," she finally spoke when it was clear that he was going to just stand around forever, waiting. As long as he existed in those moments of perpetual uncertainty at the same time she did, then he was content. "Go and see your daughter?"

"Yeah." Slowly, he dropped the sandwich back down on the plate. "I did."

"And?"

"And what?"

"And what are you going to do, Laxus?"

He let out a bit of a breath then before, with a shrug, he said, "I don't know."

"Laxus-"

"I just wanted Mira to know that I knew and that it's gonna be clear now that I'm, you know, her father."

"But why?" Tasha came closer then. "Why did you go thoruhg all of this, revealing all of this, if you don't even want a relationship with the kid?"

"I do want one."

"Then-"

"Just not… Look, it's still Mira's daughter, alright?" He shrugged. "Not mine. Not really. She's fine with Mira. And now that she knows about me, well, if they need anything-"

"Laxus, you know that you can't do that."

"Do what?"

"You did not go through all of this just to go back to pretending like she doesn't exist. What a terrible thing to even try and do."

"I'm not doing that. I know she exists and she knows that I-"

"Laxus."

"What do you want me to do, Tasha? Huh? You ran out on me because of this kid and now-"

"I didn't run out on you."

"Then-"

"I needed some time to think." She was placing her palms on the kitchen table then, leaning against it as she glared at him. "And I thought a lot. I didn't need to think about the fact that you, what? Had a daughter? From before we were together? No. If you'd found out about her at the xact same time as me, I would have been here, with you, dealing with it, with you. But you didn't. You lied to me, Laxus, about one of the biggest things a person could lie about."

"But I came clean."

"Because you were about to get caught, no doubt."

"A lot of doubt, Tasha. Mira wasn't ever going to… She doesn't even want me in the kid's life now! I was never going to get caught."

"Then you did this out of the goodness of your heart?" she retorted with an eye roll and obvious sarcasm.

He considered her for a moment or two before remarking, "No."

"Then-"

"I did it because...because if we had… If we had a child together- When we have a child together, I can't… I can't know that I have one kid out there, on their own, while I have another one that I care about and love. That's fucked. It's one thing to say you can't be a father, it's another to pick and choose who you're being a father to."

She let out a breath then, Tasha did, but didn't speak. Only stared. And Laxus stared right back.

Then, to fill the silence, he added, "And think about it. What if we have a son? And our son and Mira's daughter both go to Fairy Tail? Or go anywhere in the world, really? Look at me. My genes are strong. Those kids will be as impeccable as I am. What if they were attracted to one another? Then what, Tasha? I had to stop the chance at incest. At all costs."

For a moment, they both stared at one another. Then Tasha let out a long sigh and simply said, "You make it really hard sometimes, Laxus. Really hard."

"It was a civic duty."

"You're not funny. I'm not going to laugh about this." Shaking her head at him, she said, "This isn't a joke, Laxus."

"I'm not trying to make one."

"You are too. Do you know how sad it is? That your daughter has been saddled with two parents who are so selfish-"

"Mirajane didn't do any of this to be selfish," he cut her off. He rarely did this to her, but for some reason, he drew the line there. "Alright? So don't say that. I don't know what happens now, but I know that I don't want any problems between the two of you. That's the whole reason-"

"Why would there be problems between us? Laxus?"

"Well, I mean, you're starting off by calling her selfish-"

"And she started off by hiding my husband's child from him."

She made great points.

She always had.

Sighing a bit, Laxus looked off finally as he said, "I just don't want to deal with it, alright?"

"Deal with what?"

"Women, you know….getting all woman like with one another."

"Excuse me?"

"See? Like this."

"Laxus-"

"I don't do drama."

"You caused the drama."

"Did not."

"This could have all been avoided," she told him with a frown, "had you come to me in the beginning. Or even had some sort of critical thinking to wonder how your...fuck buddy ended up pregnant literally around the time you both broke up or whatever you did."

"Definitely not broke up." He wanted that out there. "We were never together."

"You were something together."

"Tash-"

"And don't you ever try and tell me how to react to a situation." Her gaze went back to a glare. "You hear me? Laxus? And I'm not looking to have problems with Mirajane. Unless there's something else that you need to tell me?"

He wanted to question what she was talking about, but she had a certain glint in her eye that he knew exactly what she meant.

"Of course not," he was quick to respond. Finally, he moved to come around the table. When he reached for her though, she shrugged him off. Still, Laxus said, "I love you. Mira's… She's just fucking Mirajane to me. Nothing else. We weren't even in a real relationship, even. Just what I told you. She wanted a kid, with me, because of our magic. That's it. Magic. And that kid...my daughter.. She has that. I could feel it. She's powerful. Plus, Mira's, like, obsessed with my grandfather or something, so there's that too, but-"

"I'm just telling you, right now," she said as it wa sher turn to cut him off, it seemed (he'd ramble on if she didn't), "that if you and Mira have any unresolved feelings or something that will come up, while you're trying to...parent your daughter-"

"I'm not even trying to do that."

"You are trying to do that." And she gave him a look. "How could I ever trust you to have a child with me if you can't even take care of your other child?"

So many good points. Ones that Laxus wanted to debate desperately, but managed to keep his +tongue tame for the time being. Not that it won him any favors as Tasha only locked herself off in her workspace and ignored him for the entire day. And the next. Still, he only sat around the house and waited.

She couldn't be mad at him forever, could she?

Mirajane, however, wasn't so certain her sister would ever speak to her again. An exaggeration, for sure, but it sure felt that way, those few days. That specific day, Lisanna had left out to the guild without her sister and hardly spoke to her outside a few times Aura kind of forced them to speak over breakfast. She had the day off and wanted to spend it alone, honestly, in her house, away from the chances of running into Makarov (who she'd avoided up to that point) or anyone else that Laxus might have spilled the beans to.

Her luck, however, seemed to run out as while Aura was very busy with her dolls on the living room floor and Mira was flipping through a book though preoccupied by other things in her mind. When there was a sharp knock at the door, she feared the worst. That Makarov had finally come over to have a 'conversation' with her. Or, maybe, she'd luck out and it would just one of her friends.

Either way, she had to answer the door to find out.

Unfortunately, upon doing so, she found that she was wrong on all counts.

"E-Evergreen? And Bickslow and Freed? What-"

"It has come to our attention, Mira," Freed said as he stood there, hands clasped behind his back, bowing to her slightly, "that Laxus has made a rather curious revelation about-"

"How could you, Mira?" Bickslow, who was behind him, stuck his tongue out. "Deprive us of these years?"

"I don't think that I understand what-"

"If Laxus is the father of your child," Evergreen spoke up from behind her hand fan, "that means that have just as much a connection to the child as your wretched siblings. If not more."

Mira blinked some, but managed not to take a step back. Finally, something did come to her and, to the other woman, she only said, "You're dating my brother. You could have always been around Aura if you wanted."

"Yes, but I didn't, want to. Now though-"

"Evergreen is being unnecessarily harsh." Freed was quick to stand before the other two once more, shielding them from the she-devil. "We only wish to greet the child, truly, as what we are now."

"What are you now?"

"Hopefully," the rune mage continued, "your child can come to see us as uncles and an aunt, of sorts. Laxus has no siblings and he will no doubt become preoccupied with whatever child he and his wife have, but we-"

"I really don't think," Mira cut him off at his final bit of words, "think that I want you guys here right now. I don't know what Laxus has told you, but-"

"Awe, come on, Mira, look!" Bickslow shoved his way to the front then, much to the complaints and glares of his counterparts. "Ignore these posers. I bought the kid something. It's not much, but I've never been an uncle before and I want her to have it."

Their voices had finally gotten the attention of the three-year-old and, though Mira was about ready to shut the door in all their faces, Aura was very intrigued by the sight of them. As she peered from around her mother, she smiled because she recognized them all in some way. Evergreen was frequently around her Uncle Elf and, though the woman wasn't very nice (she was kind of mean, honestly), Aura still saw her as one of the main adults in her life. Then Freed and Bickslow, well, she knew them through association. They were at the hall frequently and her Aunt Lisanna seemed to like them both a bunch.

But to hear them wanting to come see her was odd. Bickslow took notice of her first, down there near her mother's legs, and smiled brightly as his tattooed tongue fell from his mouth and he moved to bend over them.

"Say, kid, you wanna gift?" the seith asked as Aura, at the words moved passed her mother and nodded her head. Bickslow had a visor that hid his face, so she wasn't able to look him in the eyes, but she felt his and hers had a better time, anyways, staring at the wrapped box the man presented her with. "From your most important uncle?"

"Bickslow," Freed hissed as he was no doubt about to ruin everything. Not to mention, he had a pretty bad experience with gifting the child things himself. Freed spoke from experience. "Knock it off."

But he wouldn't. And Aura was moving to snatch the present as the dolls that floated about Bickslow weren't even able to capture her attention. Instead, she focused at pulling on ripping right into the gift. It was a little box and, as her mother and perhaps, maybe, aunt and uncles watched, she took the lid off to reveal, inside, a little toy knight, clad in his armor. As she pulled it out and dropped the box to the floor though, she turned to rush and introduce the new toy to her others. Bickslow was quick to use Mira's distraction to slip inside as well.

"Wait," he called to Aura as she sat back down on the floor with her dolls. "I have to show you somethin' about 'im first."

"Bickslow," Freed called and Mira was heading over, but the seith only fell to his knees with the little girl and, reaching out, he waited for her to hand the knight back over. She was apprehensive, of course, as she didn't want him to take her new toy away, but she did go ahead and place it in his palm anyways.

"You gotta wind him up, yeah?" The seith was doing so then. "Then set him down and- Watch!"

As he sat the toy back down, the knight began to move across the floor as he raised one foot after the other, his arms moving as well, opposite of the leg movements, so he'd bring his sword up once, then lower it as he raised his shield. Aura giggled uncontrollably at this and reached to take the toy back.

"See?" Bickslow's tongue tumbled out of his mouth then as his dolls floated excitedly about as well, cackling along with the little girl. "Isn't it the best toy you own, kid?"

Well, it was the most recent, which meant yes, yes it was.

Mira had a strange look on her face, one that Freed couldn't read, so he stayed back with her, but Evergreen was not going to be out down and came in then as well, heading over.

"It's a junky toy, Aura, and not at all something a little girl should be playing with," she interrupted. "It doesn't even fit in with your little dolls here."

So? It was new and that meant that it was her favorite thing in the whole wide world.

Especially her teeny tiny part of it.

Freed though only looked to the girl's mother and said simply, "Laxus told us of you and his… We only wish to help, Mirajane."

"Is that what you want, Freed?"

"Yes. I assure you, it is."

"Then leave," Mira told him simply and there was something about her, when she was so down and out, that felt different than every other version of her he'd been privy to over the years. "Please. Just let me deal with this all in my own time. I don't care about whatever stupid loyalty it is that you have to stupid Laxus. Go be with him then. And whatever that other child is that you're talking about. I don't want you and Aura doesn't need you. So go."

He swallowed then before, with a slight nod, calling out to the others to hurry up then and leave Mira and her daughter alone. Bickslow was the most distraught by this, but still only had his babies bid farewell to the girl before heading out as commanded.

Once they were alone again, Mirajane only went over to her daughter and bent down, staring as the child did, at the little toy soldier in her hands.

"You must be pretty special, Aura," she told her with a soft sigh, "you keep getting all these visitors."

Aura had to concur.

The next round of visitors were not for her, however, and arrived just after the three-year-old was snuggled up in her bed for an afternoon nap. It wasn't so much that Lucy or Cana would object to see the little girl, but rather, there seemed to be something much more pressing to discuss.

"I'm just glad you didn't bring Happy," Mira sighed at the sight of Lucy all alone for once.

Because once he knew, everyone knew. Which was what they were headed towards, of course, but just at a hopefully slower pace.

They sat in Mira's kitchen where Cana drank booze and Lucy awaited whatever big news it was that her best friend had to deliver.

And oh, did she deliver.

Cana even choked on her drink once or twice there.

"Mira," Lucy remarked with a heavy voice. "How could you… I mean, you could have at least told me. Or Lisanna. She's just upset that you-"

"I know why she's upset."

"Then-"

"So you're telling me," Cana interrupted from around her wine glass, "that you could have been making Laxus pay for this kid for three years and you didn't do it? Imagine the money he pulls in with all those big fancy jobs he takes. Did you go to his wedding?"

"No," Mira said slowly, "but it's not about-"

"I did," the drunkard replied confidently. "Open bar. Imagine how rich you have to be to have an open bar at your reception, Mirajane."

"Cana-"

"What are you going to do next?" Lucy was far more concerned with that. "Does Laxus want… What does he want?"

"I don't know," Mira admitted to her. They were seated around her kitchen table, where they usually gathered to gossip and such, but the day the topic felt far heavier than usual. "He seemed like he just wanted to let me know that he knew and… He says that he just did it to get it all out there, in the open. And Freed mentioned that he and his wife are going to have a child soon, I think, or something, and-"

"Guilty consciousness. Men are terrible about them," Cana assured the other two women. "They always want to feel like they've done nothing wrong, even though they do everything wrong. So they're constantly in a state of apologies and revelations. Especially guys like Laxus. Trying to be all aint-hero and shit. Fuck him. He didn't want her before, he doesn't' want her now. He just didn't want something to come up and burst his perfect little bubble, now that he's going to have a baby he actually wants with the woman he actually wanted. Sorry, Mira, but it's true."

"If you're sorry," Lucy griped with a bit of a frown, "then why did you say it?"

"Did you miss the part about it being true?" Cana snorted. "Mira knows it anyways. The best thing to do is keep your kid away from him. What's she need a douche like Laxus for anyways? To teach her what it's like to never have a father around anyways? Don't… She doesn't need Laxus. Let her know he's around, he knows she's around, and that's enough. That's enough."

Mira made a bit of a face before saying, "Laxus isn't Gildarts, Cana. He's really turned himself around recently."

"Who's even talking about Gildarts? Other than you, Mira?"

"I just-"

"I doubt Laxus will pursue anything, anyways," Lucy said with a bit of a sigh though her eyes stayed on the she-devil. "He likes to think he's a good guy these days, and he might be, Mira, but if he went three years knowing and saying nothing, then Cana's probably right. If he wanted to see her, he could have. At any time. He could have brought this all up at any time. His conscious got to him. Now he's cleared it. So just stop worrying about it. And Lisanna too. She'll get over things. You and her never fight for long."

The celestial mage was right anyways, on both points. Lisanna would eventually come around and Laxus wasn't the type to pursue such a thing much further than he had if he didn't have something pushing him to do so.

"You're going to be involved in your daughter's life. If you're going to be in my life and planning on having a child with me."

Unfortunately, Laxus did have a catalyst of sorts and, like most men, it was his wife.

"Tasha," he complained that night as they laid in bed together for the first time since the news all broke. She laid far away form him though and he didn't dare try and change that. Not if he wanted to keep sleeping in said bed. "What do you want from me?"

"What I just told you."

"But why?" he complained as he laid on his back, staring up at the high ceiling. "I'm not saying that I won't be in the kid's life at all. Of course not. Now that eveyrone knows everything, how could I not be? I'll just… I'll see her when I see her."

"You'll make time to see her. And you'll help take care of her."

"Tasha, you don't even know what you're talking about right now. What do you know about this sorta thing? Huh? Nothing." He even snorted. "I come from a broken family, alright? It's better the way I'm doing it."

"It is not. And you know it."

"Tasha-"

"Laxus, shut up, and listen to me. Alright? You're going to see your kid, when you're not out on a job, an adequate amount of time. Not just see her either. Spend time with her. Get to know her. Because if we have a child together-"

"When. What happened to when?"

"-she's going to be our kid's sister. Do you not get that?"

He refrained from reworking in his whole 'civic duty' gag from before.

It hadn't gone over well, after all.

"What if Mira doesn't want me to, Tasha? I'm supposed to just cause all these problems with her because-"

"Because you want to be a father to the kid that you helped bring into the world? Yeah, Laxus, you are. She's just as much yours as she is Mirajane's. She needs to learn that this is just how it's going ot be. And that's just it. If you didn't want me to be this way about all this, you should have never done this. If, deep down, you didn't want the same thing I'm saying now, I doubt you ever would have told anyone that you knew. You know as well as I do that you feel something for your daughter. You have to. And if you don't… Then I don't know if I really can feel anything for you."

He turned his head to the side, just to glare over at her, before moving then to rest on his side, with his back to the woman.

He'd never known how much he hated being married until that exact moment.

Still, Tasha wanted him to and he needed to head into Magnolia soon anyways, to check out the jobs that were posted, so he did head back to Magnolia under her behest, stopping off at Mirajane's home early one morning.

She dreaded it too, the sound of the door being knocked upon. It was really starting to irk her.

"Laxus," she sighed at the sight. "What are you doing here? I thought you were your stupid followers."

"My stupid what?"

Mira let him in easier than she had before and only stepped the side to allow it. Once he was in, She only closed the door as she explained, "Freed, Bickslow, and Evergreen showed up yesterday."

Suddenly, his aggravation over having his hand forced with Tasha changed onto a much easier to take it out on target; the Thunder Legion.

"They what?"

"To see Aura."

"Mira, I didn't-"

"I don't," she told him simply, "want to talk about it. I'm busy getting ready for-"

"Look-seez."

Aura had escaped the clutches of her Aunt Lisanna, who'd been trying to make her at least try her eggs (she refused; as of two days ago, she'd decided she only liked eggs if they  _didn't_  have cheese in them; she didn't make the rules...well…) to greet the man at the sound of his voice. She was happy and giddy, but he doubted it was from his presence. She was a Strauss; they were all that way constantly, it seemed, unless you gave them a reason not to be.

"Hi," the three-year-old giggled as she stared up at the man.

Laxus, not nearly as giggly, remarked dryly back, "Hi."

"What are you doing here?" Lisanna, always, was to the point it seemed in those days as she came out of the kitchen as well. "Laxus? It's early."

"Well, I have to go out on a job soon and-"

"And?" she kept up and Mira made a face over at her, but Lisanna wasn't letting up.

It wasn't so much that she blamed Laxus for much, but rather it was easier to take out what she did on him than on her sister.

Like he would with the Thunder Legion later as opposed to Tasha.

He and Lisanna were, it seemed, rather kindred spirits.

"And," he grumbled, annoyed with her then, "I thought that I would come by before."

"Why?" That one came from Mira and was much softer, but he still could feel the displeasure beneath. "Laxus?"

"I can't come see her? Huh? I thought that was the point?"

"You're the one making the points," Lisanna reminded him and ugh, these were the exact types of things he wanted to avoided.

Still, Mirajane said simply, "She's eating breakfast right now and then I have to get down to the guild-"

"I don't wan' breakfast," Aura was quick to announce to them. "Gross. Ew."

"Aura-" Lisanna started in again, but Laxus spoke over her.

"Why do you want your breakfast?" he asked with a frown. "Huh? Plenty of people like your mother's food, down at the guild. You think you're special?"

"Aunt Lisanna made it," Aura told him and, nodding then, Laxus understand.

"Explains it," he agreed and as Lisanna was ready to rebuke him, Mira only let out a long sigh.

"I," Mira told them all then, loudly, "have to get ready for work. Whatever the three of you are doing is up to you, but Laxus, I am serious about what I told you before. Don't start something you can't keep up with."

As Mira went off, they all watched after her, before it was just the three of them again and Aura only continued to stare up at Laxus with bright eyes, waiting for what was going to come out of his mouth next.

She was really starting to like the guy.

"Look-seez," she asked then. "Go fish?"

He had didn't even have to consider that. "No," he told her simply and forcefully because he meant it.

Well, he just got a lot less fun for the little girl.

Laxus looked to her aunt then though and asked, "Maybe...maybe I could take her out to break fast then? If she won't eat the one that you made? And-"

"What?" Lisanna was as against this, it seemed, as he was playing another card game with the little girl. "Laxus-"

"What? Huh? You think I'm incompetent or something?" He was on the defensive immediately. "That I'd lose her?"

"Well, considering I wouldn't trust you not to lose a puppy, yeah, I do, Laxus."

He glared then before remarking, "Well, good thing it's not up to you, huh?"

And he walked passed them both then, Lisanna and her niece, as he headed after where he thought Mirajane might have gotten off to. He saw Aura's bedroom door shut and another door open, but the other closed one, yeah, that had to be Mira's room.

When he knocked against it though, he got an irritated voice back.

"Lisanna, just deal with him, alright?" Mira complained from the other side. "I-"

"It's me," the man responded. "Him, I guess. I-"

"Laxus, what are you-"

"Can I come in? Or are you, huh, undressed or something? Or-"

The door opened to reveal her very much so clothed, but clearly in the midst of digging through her closet for something, given the fact the door to it was wide open and there were shoes thrown about the room.

Mira had no embarrassment left in her, it seemed, however, as she cared little for the mess and only said to the slayer as he stared, "Are you coming in or what?"

The second he was in, she closed the bedroom door and oh, gosh, he hadn't been alone with another woman, in a bedroom since...since…well, Mira. Great. He'd love having to tell Tasha about this…

As they stood before one another, however, Laxus felt little attraction towards the woman, but rather some sort of pity. He'd always pitied Mirajane, honestly, in some way or another. She lived a shitty life her entire life and though she tried to portray it as otherwise, he imagined raising a kid alone hadn't been all that she thought it was cracked up to be.

He knew, at least, he wasn't the type that would be geared towards it at least.

"Well?" Mira asked and, with a sigh, Laxus looked away. "What did you want?"

"I wanted to take Aura out to breakfast, but Lisanna-"

"She has breakfast."

"Made by Lisanna," he reasoned. "You can see why-"

"Laxus-"

"I just want to do this one little thing, Mira, before I go out on a job." He made a bit of a face. "Is that too much to ask?"

"If you would just tell me what it is that you want, Laxus," Mira told him with just as much of a face, "then I would gladly give it to you so that we can figure this all out."

"I've told you what I want."

"You tell me riddles that you don't even know the answers to and then change them midway through. It's not fun and it's not conclusive. You want to be in Aura's life?"

"Yeah. I do. Now. I-"

"Then take her to breakfast if it's that big of a deal, but I'll tell you this once, Laxus, and don't ever make me remind you of it." Mira took a step closer to him then and he'd forgotten how nice her eyes could look, even when they were filed with vitriol. "If you ever hurt my daughter, ever turn your back on her, if anything ever befalls her because of you, I'll make you wish that Ivan had carved that lacrima from your chest cavity when you were a boy and ended your life then. I promise you that."

Oh,. So this is what Freed had been so scared of, when he reported back on the failed gift endeavor. Yeah, Laxus could see why he ran.

He stared her right back in the eyes as he reminded, "She's my daughter too, Mirajane."

"Yes. She is." And he didn't think she'd ever admitted that so plainly to him. For one that wanted to accuse the other about riddles… "But that doesn't have a damn thing to do with what I just said."

And just like that, so marginally and yet magnificently, that tiny switch inside of Mirajane changed asn she took a few steps back before going over to her closet once more. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to finish getting ready. I cannot find this one pair that I want to wear..."

He watched her for a moment, Laxus did, before saying, "I won't hurt her, Mira. I just want to spend time with her."

"If that's what you want, Laxus," was all he got tossed over her shoulder and, well, it might not really be what he wanted, he wasn't so sure yet, but it was what his wife wanted.

And that was the same thing, wasn't it?

He was afraid that the kid would cry as they left her home, just the two of them, and Lisanna didn't seem to want to let her go anyways, so he let the younger woman come out with them as well. Aura asked her mother to go, but Mirajane only assured her that she'd see her at the guildhall soon enough and, well, that was enough for the little girl.

"We can eat," Laxus announced to Aura as they left, Lisanna tagging along, "wherever you want."

That would be a dangerous thing to say to her, as Laxus would learn, in the coming months, but that day she wanted to prove a point to her aunt, so she only told the man she wanted to eat eggs.

"Without," she said harshly while glaring at Lisanna, "cheese."

So they settled on literally anywhere that would accommodate that.

Laxus wasn't much for making conversation with people in his peer group, so he was completely out of whack with how to communicate with such a young child, but Aura did enough of it for both of them. In her broken understanding of language, she told him all about her day-to-day life which consisted of the same drivel most three-year-old's did and, upon the request of her aunt, she even sang (most) of her ABCs to him.

"It's alright," he assured her with a bit of a frown. "The L-O part gets a lot of people."

It really did.

"We go to breakfast again, Laxus?" she asked as he walked her and her aunt back to the hall, her handling of his name much smoother then, as she'd said it enough over their meal, it seemed. "Soon?"

"Yeah," he assured her with a nod of his head though he felt Lisanna's heavy gaze for the response. "Very soon."


	10. Insight

There weren't many people in the guildhall that Mirajane Strauss feared. Especially as a young child. She was an unruly little shit, just like all the other little shits, but an extremely powerful one. One that had already come into her immense power. Whereas Natsu, Gray, or the others would eventually have to find something to force them into being the true powerhouses they possessed the ability to be, she'd already absorbed Satan Soul and was still coming to terms with it.

Much like Erza, she had far to much power than she knew what to do with and, with little to no guidance, it more or less ran wild.

Still, there was someone who could reign her in and, to the very day she was currently living in, he was the one she credited with saving her entire life.

"Oh, Mirajane," Makarov sighed many times to her. "What are we going to do?"

From the guild's destruction to his failing health, he turned for her many times in her adulthood with those very words on his lips. However, there was once, when she was still crumbling under all the weight, that he muttered these words to he and they turned everything around.

"What are we going to do?" he asked with a shake of his head. "Your sister… The guild… Your brother, he… Such a senseless tragedy."

He'd shown up there, at the Strauss household, while Elfman was out. Mirajane had been holed up in there for days. She hadn't let since the funeral and had actually refused to answer the door for just about anyone. A few of her guild mates had come over, to check on her and offer more condolences, but she only hid in her room. Cana, Levy, they all came. They all tried. She refused every single one.

The worst though had been Natsu who came by with Happy. She actually made Elfman answer and tell them she wasn't around. They needed to talk, she knew, her and Lisanna's tow dearest friends, but she just…

She couldn't.

It was on that day that Elfman was out though, off to the store, that the one person Mirajane could never turn away knocked upon the door and, of course, she was forced to open it at the sound of him calling out to her. How could she not? In the deepest throes of despair, Makarov was one of her very few lights. He'd saved them, her siblings and her.

She'd be forever in his debt for that.

Upon entering the little rundown house Mira had purchased for nothing, with her first reward for an S-Class job, the man didn't turn up his nose. Only smiled, warmly, at the teenager. Mira, her eyes stones, looked right through him though.

They sat down in the kitchen where the man refused her offer at tea and Mira only sat there awkwardly, finding different points in the tiny room to stare at, rather than make eye contact with him.

"You know," Makarov said after his previous statement fell on deaf ears and it was clear he was going to have to lead the conversation if he wanted it to get somewhere. "I don't think that I've seen you around, Mirajane. Recently. I thought perhaps that you required me to come inform you that you are certainly still capable of taking-"

"I can't."

"Of course you can."

"I'm telling you, Master, that I can't."

"You are an S-Class wizard. There is nothing that you cannot-"

"I'm only S-Class because of my power." And her eyes fell to the floor then as one hand rubbed uncomfortably at her other arm. "I don't… I can't anymore, Master. Ever again. I'll never be able to again. My...my Stan Soul, I've… I've lost it."

And her voice broke then as her eyes welled with tears she refused to let fall, not in front of him, not in front of the Master, while Makarov only sat there, watching. Silent.

"Your power," he finally told her softly from across the table, "has never been Satan Soul, Mirajane. It's not your Takeover. It's Not your Transformations. It's something much deeper. The first day I met you, I felt it. There was a deep, latent, untapped power that resided in your core. It's not even completely tasted the light of day yet. With or without Satan Soul, you will always have it. And there will always be a job there, for you, at my guildhall. Whether you realize it or not."

He stood then as she finally had to hide her tears in her palms and the man was silent as he watched, for a few moments, before coming closer and patting the child on the shoulder gently. He was so short that when she raised her head from her palms, she was actually staring down at him from where she still sat at the table.

"When I lost my wife," he told her softly as the pair only stared at one another, "I abandoned my son, practically. I took so many jobs. Then, when Laxus' mother died...and Ivan, he… I was so busy with the guild. So often. That I missed...I missed all the signs, my dear. For both of them. And now… But I won't do that again. I wont' ever do that again. Not with any of the new children I've been gifted. I failed you. And your brother. And...and poor, little Lisanna. But I won't again. I promise you, Mirajane, that I will not fail my children again."

And then his tears welled, but unlike her, he didn't mind openly letting them fall. Around them, he added onto his words.

"Come see me, Mirajane, at the guildhall. When you're ready." Finally, he turned to walk off. "I'll be waiting."

She did, of course. Not that day. Not the next. Not even the one after that. But eventually she did go down to Fairy Tail where she was welcomed not only by her concerned guild mates, but also her waiting Master. The job he had for her to take was one that she didn't feel ready for, at the time, but slowly fell into and eventually gave her all. It became her far more than any other job ever had.

Mirajane was a barmaid.

Through and through.

Mostly though, she was loyal to Makarov. All of them were, really, in the guild, but she felt as if she was above all others. It was probably a wrong assumption, but she felt it kind of special. She was sure that they all did, but…

As she stood out on the Master's doorstep that day, Aura standing a bit impatiently beside her, she felt as if she were reporting to the Magic Council or something. That's how high she sought his praise or feared his disapproval.

Upon opening the door though, Makarov hardly spoke to Mirajane. Instead, he addressed the little girl who mostly just wanted to go out and play in his garden. There were lots of cool bugs and things that hung out in the dirt and plants back there that she loved to watch and play with.

But not eat.

Both Master and her mother made that very clear on different occasions.

As Aura went to explore the backyard (it really wasn't much; unless you were three, then it was a lot), Mirajane and Makarov had tea on the patio where, after stirring his cup a few times, the elderly man let out a long sigh and looked up at the woman.

"Oh, Mira," he sighed as he typically did. "What are we going to do?"

"Master-"

"Did you not think that I deserved to know? That I had a grandchild? Do you know how cruel it is to-"

"I didn't even think about you, Master. Laxus-"

"He deserved to know too," he scolded with a frown. "I am not even speaking as just his grandfather, but in a general sense. What you did was deceitful, Mirajane. And disgusting. Why is it you that got to chose for Laxus how his life should go? With no consideration for how it would affect your own daughter. Not only do I not condone your decisions, Mira, but I also am extremely disappointed to find that you, of al people, have made them."

She wanted to say something. To defend herself. But Mirajane only stared down at her hands then, silent. He was, after all, speaking the truth. She had her own reasons, of course, that he didn't understand, but he couldn't understand. Who could? He'd already deemed her incorrect in the situation and, honestly, Mira was sure most would.

"But," the man said after a beat of remorse past, "to dwell is to waste. Life has given you many second chances, Mirajane, in many different ways. This is one of them. What you do now is what matters. Not what you did yesterday, but only what happens today and tomorrow. And then the new today and tomorrow. Laxus is not too broken up by this, I reason, and, well, no harm, no foul, yes?"

She looked up then and the man was grinning at her, from where he sat and Mira had to return it. It would be too hard not to. Once she nodded her head, he finally moved to take a sip from his cup and look out at his garden, where Aura could be seen just between some potted plants. She was squatted down, messing with something, and talking to it loudly.

"She must have found a rabbit," Makarov remarked at the sight, shaking his head a bit. "They've been overrunning the place, recently."

Mira got up at that, to head over there. "Aura, leave it alone, okay? You don't mess with nature."

"No," Makarov sighed more to himself as he watched the woman go bend down where her daughter was, to see just what she was getting into. "You don't."

Laxus arrived back from his job around the same time that Elfman finally came home from his. Between Lisanna and Mira's spat and Evergreen obsessing over a new Strauss, no one had found the time to inform Aura's only and favorite uncle that some news of her paternity had broken. By that point it had spread throughout the hall and he was actually there when he heard the news.

Mira was working, as she always was, and she'd just finished serving a table by the door, moments before he entered. As she turned and left, Elfman heard the snickers from the people at the table and, considering the grown the guild had gone through as of late, he didn't know them. Still, his ear caught something of what they said.

"Imagine thinking trying to pin a kid on the Master's grandson will get you a better position than waitress," one laughed softly to the other and Elfman didn't understand, really, what they meant.

Honestly, he thought they were talking about Kinana. Who, while he wouldn't say he was close to by any means, he did at least hear about constantly from Mirajane considering how closely the pair worked. Gosh. Poor Kinana. A baby by Laxus? How revolting.

His sister was happy to see him, of course, and Elfman was glad to see her in such high spirits. When Lisanna ditched out on their job, boy, he thought something massive had gone wrong, but neither contacted him again and though he worried some, he definitely would have heard if something bad had struck Fairy Tail. He figured they were just having some, uh, 'women' issues. Because though he thought of his oldest sister as all man, she sure could be a big woman sometimes.

Coming from him, this was not a compliment.

Mirajane was glad to see him though and sat her serving tray down at the sight, so she could wrap her arms around him.

"It is so good," she told him softly, "to have you home, Elf."

"I've only been gone for a bit."

"Feels a lot longer. These few weeks..."

"Well, I'm home now. And that's what matters, right?"

As they separated, she couldn't help the long breath she let out. "Right."

"I should probably go check in with Ever-"

"Wait, no, stay. Here. At the guild." She didn't mean to sound so panicked, but she was just a bit. She'd lied to Elfman for so long. If someone was going to tell him the truth, she wanted igt to be her. "I'll be on break soon. Then you and I need to talk."

It wasn't like he was chomping at the bit to see the other woman or anything (or that Evergreen was wanting to really see him either), so he obliged easily with his older sister. She'd been the one giving him commands since she first learned to talk, after all. He'd always follow her orders.

For Mirajane though, taking a break wasn't honestly taking one at all. For her, that day, it meant going down into storage where they'd just gotten a shipment of some cold stuff that she either needed frozen or sent upstairs to be thawed.

She made Elf come with her to help out.

"Is that all you wanted? Sis?" he asked as they arrived down there to begin their work. Again, if Mirajane was telling him to do it, he was doing it. End of discussion. "For me to help out? Or was there actually something that you-"

"I wanted to talk, actually."

"Oh. About something serious? Or just some of that gossip you like to sling about?" He whistled then. "Get this one, sis. You know your friend Kinana. All knocked up, I heard?"

"You what?" Mira almost dropped a box of frozen steaks on her foot. "Where did you hear that? No way! She would have told me. Ooh, when I get to her-"

"It's just a rumor, I guess," he eased off some then with a bit of a shrug. "I heard it when I came in. You know who get her all knocked up?"

"Don't say knocked up," Mira chided. "It's disrespectful."

More so than talking about such a thing in the first place?

Elfman didn't voice this concern. Instead, he only lowered his voice a bit as he said, "It's Laxus. Can you believe that?"

And suddenly Mira's excitement was drained right out of her, like a balloon with a hole.

Sighing some, she stopped what she was doing all together and took a long look over at where he was diligently moving boxes around, at her discretion. Though it was much easier to observe the bond Mirajane had with her little sister, the one that she shared with her little brother was still just as much there. Elfman was special to her in ways that Lisanna wasn't. Though she could recall, vaguely, when Lisanna was born, in her mind, Elfman had always been there. And he'd always been her baby brother. Always. Even as they grew, she always saw herself as needing to protect him. Lisanna, she was in danger from her own naivety and easy to trust personality, but Elfman… Elfman was always just so emotional, when they were kids. Mira had to look out for him because of that. Now, of course, he was more likely to protect her feelings, but only in return for the deep gratitude he had for all she'd done for him his whole life.

Elfman wouldn't be there without his older sister. He didn't know anyone stronger than her. No one was more of man than she was. Not even him.

They'd also lived through something, together, that Lisanna had had no part in. Those two years without her had really made massive changes to both of them. They were different people because of one another. Makarov might have helped bring Mirajane out of her darkness, yes, but it was Elfman that she chose to come out for.

"Elf," she said softly then as they stood around in the dusty basement of the guildhall. "I have to tell you something."

"Of course, sis." He was tired of laughing at Kinana anyways. "Go ahead."

"Do you remember what I told you?" she asked. "About Aura's father?"

"Guess so." Then, suspicious, he made a bit of a face. "Why? What's going on? Do you need me to-"

"I need you to listen."

It was hard, but he could manage.

"I've...I've lied to you, Elfman. About this whole thing. What you heard about Kinana…. I'm sorry. And now Lisanna wont' talk to me and Laxus and his new wife think, like, that they want something to do with her and I just I can't stop that from happening, I guess, and then Master is...he's… I just didn't mean for this all to turn out this way, Elf. I hate it. Why did I ever think that I wanted this?"

That was the thing that Mira and Lisanna didn't have. That Elfman and Lisanna didn't have, even. Elfman had seen Mirajane at her very lowest. Twice before, actually. Lisanna didn't have those vivid memories of the deaths of their parents, but he did. He could still remember how broken Mira looked. And of course, she had no idea what it was like for Mira, when she was dead. How could she? But Elfman knew. He knew very well.

Of course, these tears were nothing like those. Nothing at all. There were hardly tears at all. But just the sight of them, just the idea of them, sent him into this over protective mode. He didn't want Mira to feel anything close to that again. Didn't want her to ever so much as hurt an ounce. She'd more than gone through enough for a lifetime.

He was the one that hugged her that time and, keeping a tight grip on her, Elfman didn't feel that resentment or anger that Lisanna had. No. He'd never have that towards his older sister. He couldn't. Not after all that she'd done for him through the years. There were stretches of time when he had no one else in the entire world, but her.

He could never hate her.

Never.

He couldn't even really recall getting mad at her in years. Perhaps since his early youth. Mira was more of a mother to him than his own had been, given her early exit from life, and little boys didn't fight with their mothers. No. They might disagree with them, they might let them down, they might even disobey then, but they didn't fight them.

Not the good ones, anyways.

"It'll be okay, sis," he sighed into the top of her head as he rested his face there, listening to Mira only try and sniff her tears back inside. "I understand. I understand everything."

But did he?

Laxus, as stated before, arrived back from his around the same time as Elfman, but unlike him, did go run to check in with his sister. No, Laxus had something equally as complex and perplexing to deal with.

"What are you doing?" he asked as he found his wife in the spare bedroom rather than her studio, very diligently shifting around boxes. It had been used as storage, so far, but they'd spoken frequently, before, about it eventually becoming their future child's nursery. At the sight of her in there, well… "Are you looking for something?"

"We gotta get some stuff moved out of here."

"Why?" he asked as he dropped his bag to the floor with a bit of a thud and still just stood there, in the doorway, staring in at her. He'd been gone long enough that they both should have been all over one another already. But they weren't. They were so far apart. "Tasha?"

"For your daughter, Laxus."

He hated it too. Not just her tone (she was talking to him like he was an idiot again; she'd been doing it since the whole thing began and he was about done with it), but rather the way that he let out a long breath, as if relieved. Tasha either didn't pick up on it or just didn't care as she still hardly glanced at him.

Then he realized what she'd said instead.

"Wait, what?"

"Where's she gonna stay when she comes over? Laxus?"

"When's she doing that?"

"You tell me."

They both shared a look that time and his sigh was much more audible.

"Why do you keep pushing into this? Huh? Why can't you just let things progress naturally?"

"Because natural to you is ignoring a problem until it goes away. And this won't go away, so you'll just sulk about it for the rest of forever and do nothing to fix it." Then she looked him up and down. "Well, are you going to tell me about your job? Or what?"

He didn't want to. For the first time in their entire relationship, he really didn't want to be around her at all. Because she was still all serious and shit instead of loving and amusing.

If this was what she was like when it came to a kid they both hardly even knew, what was she going to be like if they ever had one of their own?

"It could be worse," Freed sighed when Laxus went to see him the next day. "She could have left you."

"Is that the worst thing right now?"

"You know you don't mean that."

He only let out a long sigh before shrugging. Still, Freed sat there on the couch, as if studying him.

"Or," he added slowly, "she could not want you to be around the child. Is that what you want? You can tell me if it is. Is it what you'll want when you and Tasha… Mirajane has given up her secret now, to everyone. If you and Tasha are worried about the fate of the child, do not. I and Evergreen and Bickslow-"

"Yeah, I heard about your stupid little stunt."

"L-Laxus-"

"I didn't ask you to go over there, Freed, and fuck things up further."

"Do you think that I wished to go?"

"Yeah, I think you did."

Well…

"I went," he told him with his head held high, "To save Evergreen and Bickslow from going alone. Even you must admit that if I were not there, it would have been even more of a disaster than it was."

"Mira needs space."

"Mira had three years of space."

Laxus only shook his head some as he remarked, "I don't even know why defend her. I'm not on her side. Not really. And she's not on mine. I just… Is it bad? That I feel against my own wife in all this? And she's the one in the right, isn't she? She's the one doing the right thing? I'm the one that's struggling to not do the wrong. So typical. So fucking typical."

"Are you...are you going to see the child?" Freed felt that it would be simpler, when dealing with such a daunting task as being a father, if dealt with in tiny steps. Such as the one he was questioning then. "Again? Now that you are back? Today?"

Laxus shrugged again and Freed let the conversation lull. It was enough of a confirmation, anyways.

For the first time, when he arrived at the Strauss house, no one was home. Which was just as well. He honestly didn't want to see Aura. Not really. Maybe a little. Mostly though just because Tasha had ordered it when she sent him back to Magnolia just for that task. What could he do, then if the girl wasn't home?

It was his luck that the way he chose to walk happened to be the one that Lisanna and Aura were returning from the park on. The little girl smiled brightly when they approached the man though Lisanna did so with hesitance. If Laxus hadn't so openly spotted them, she may have tried to feign ignorance, but he'd stopped, right there on the sidewalk, at the sight of their approach and, well, she wasn't heartless, after all.

Aura smiled at the sight of him, waving joyfully, and he only saw himself in her face when she stood before him, head titled back, and he wondered how no one else had noticed in all these years. Or was he only noticing because he was in the know?

"Hi, Laxus," the little girl giggled and, as her arm dropped, she began to sway on her feet in that way young kids did, as she added, "You came back."

"I always do," he told her and he meant it. Really, he did. "Aura."

She giggled so loudly at the sound of him saying her name, nearly falling over in her glee, and he could see the Strauss in her then. Through and through.

"Was there something that you wanted?" Lisanna asked him slowly. She didn't want to come off as annoyed. Honestly, she didn't even know what she felt towards Laxus over the whole thing, if anything at all. "We were just headed home-"

"I just came by to give her something."

And slowly then, Laxus dropped to one knee, right there on the sidewalk, and produced from the sack on his back a little sown doll he'd picked up in the village he'd just returned from. At it's sight, Aura snatched the thing right up, staring at it in all of it's handmade glory.

In a loud, authoritative way that young children had about them, she announced to the two adults. "She's ugly."

As Lisanna looked on in shock and Laxus tried hard not to hate the ungrateful little brat already, Aura quickly moved to snuggle the thing to her.

"Love her," she declared just as quickly and snuggled the, admittedly, ugly little thing to her chest while beaming even brighter, if that was possible, at her father she hardly knew. "T'anks!'

Laxus blinked and Lisanna relaxed some, but the slayer was the one that reached out to gently pat the head of the young girl and ruffle her soft blonde hair.

"Maybe next time," he sighed as he rose to his feet and only slipped his hands into his pockets, "she'll be prettier."

Maybe. Given that he would still be the one picking out the toy, Lisanna wagered on probably not. Still, Laxus seemed content then and Aura wanted to get home quickly to introduce her newest doll to the others, so they set off together, the short rest of the way to the house.

"You sure are getting a lot of toys recently, aren't you, Aura?" Lisanna teased. "Have you been enough good enough girl for them?"

"Yes," she said with confidence. Her little toy knight and doll were very well deserved, even, she'd wager.

That was the reason, obviously, she was getting them. Obviously.

Why else would she be?

Aura didn't understand, of course, why though, that Laxus and Bickslow of all people were so concerned with her, but she was pretty grateful. Because it didn't matter why. Not at that age. In her mind everyone cared and everyone did what they were supposed to. Adults, at least. They all knew their roles and they followed them.

Why they did one thing or another bothered her very little. Adults knew what they were doing. They had to. Because if they didn't...who did?


	11. Abide

She was different from Laxus in many ways and yet so similar in others. Tasha didn't have any magical abilities or any desire for them, truly. Guilds, magical and non, weren't something that was a big factor in the part of the Kingdom she resided in. They were heard of and she even met a few, throughout childhood, but magic blessed no bloodline there in those days and, any it had touched, had long moved away. The biggest way they differed, however, was actually rooted in the same way that they were similar.

Tasha didn't come from a broken family.

But she did come from one that was heavily splintered.

Her family was affluent, both on the sides of her mother and that of her father, but not nearly to the extent that her name was well-known. They made enough to be more than sufficient, however, and that meant something. She never wanted for much or at least not for long. It was a comfortable life with a mother, a father, brothers, and sisters.

That, however, didn't make it perfect.

Her father and mother never divorced, the idea was inconceivable, but they certainly had very little love for one another. Tasha would go as far as to say that they hated one another. With a passion. By the time that she was born, still not even the youngest, it was clear that the two of them had more than fallen out of love. They both questioned, even, if they had truly ever been in it.

But there were no choices, her parents both decided, other than the ones that they were making. Divorce was just...not an option. Think of the gossip. The looks. The children. Think of the children. Rather, they found it much better to verbally accost one another at every turn and make their home a rather hostile environment. And that was the thing that they seemed unable to understand.

It is impossible to have such a volatile relationship with another person, in the same close proximity, without it affection those around you. And they had to see it. They had to know. They had to pick up on the way that their arguments and snide comments affected their children. Not to mention, when you have such hate in your heart, you can never just turn it against the one person you mean to direct it towards. No. There were stretches of years where her mother, lost in such a marriage, became downright cruel and her father never was a pleasant man. Never.

They were miserable people and found it right to make others miserable with them.

Her father wanted his sons to follow him into his business while his daughters were meant to follow their own paths. If their own paths meant marrying the sons of his associates or taking up the more 'womanly' jobs in his company, such as secretaries and the like.

Tasha didn't necessarily reject this ideal. When she was eight, her oldest sister married a very nice man that owned a tiny music shop that sold all sorts of instruments. From guitars to trumpets, to flutes to an organ that took up far too much room and her sister grumbled constantly he was never going to sell, she didn't know why he even picked it up, the man sold everything. He also, once Tasha clashed one too many times with the piano teacher that her father had all his children learn from (the old woman was just too harsh; scales were just too hard when you had some old coot breathing down your neck), took over teaching her which lead to her spending far more time around the newlyweds than her sister probably appreciated.

But her new brother-in-law was far too nice and allowed her to stay over at their modest apartment frequently. Tom was his name. Thomas, her father called him, quite curtly, when he asked for her sister's hand. Tasha gagged at the thought, at the time, because all marriages were dumb and boys weren't dumb, really, but liking them so much was, especially enough to marry them. He was a family friend though, Thomas was, from way back. She couldn't think of a time, really, that Tom wasn't in their lives. His father and hers grew up together, in that very town, and got married around the same time, her mother told her with a sigh. She didn't enjoy Thomas' family near as much, but that was fine, because her opinion didn't matter near as much. All that did was what Father thought.

Oh, and her sister, Nancy. Nancy's opinion mattered. Maybe.

It didn't matter, anyways, because she very much so did want to marry Tom. Badly. For a lot of reasons, Tasha was sure, once she got older. It was a chance to get out of that house, Tom worked somewhere other than her father, and overall, he was a pretty decent guy. At no point would Tasha describe them as head over heels for one another, but that didn't always fair too well anyways. Tom was willing, if not perhaps pressured by his own father, and Nancy would do anything to get away.

Tasha didn't blame her.

In fact, once she realized that would be one less person in the girl's room, she was kind of excited. But it was only after her new brother-in-law began to teach her piano that she learned just how great it was.

Getting away from the house was a hassle in such a big family. Usually, either everyone went together, or no one went anywhere. And blood might be thicker than water, but man, there's no one you hate like your own siblings when you've been cooped up around one another for far too long. It gave her a chance to get away, even if it was just for a few hours a day, and she was plenty grateful.

"Do you even like piano? Tasha? Or music at all?" her brother-in-law asked one day as the girl struggled to get through the piece they'd been working on for the past two weeks. "Do you even practice?"

"No," she answered to all three questions. It was the truth. Well, sort of. She hated piano, practiced when forced to, and though she didn't hate music, she certainly did the kind that she was being subjected to by her father. "I don't."

He smiled at her with clear sympathy. Sometimes, especially at such a young age, it was easy to consider yourself to be the only suffering person in a situation. It was difficult to realize that those around you, even the ones that you don't particularly care for, also go through turmoil and difficulties. Though she could say nothing bad about Thomas' father, she had no doubt that the man could say a few things about him himself. Her father was the only tyrant. Her mother wasn't the only cruel woman in the world. He knew the struggles of growing up the same as her.

He'd lived it too.

"Well, what do you like then?" he asked her. Gesturing around the room, his hand went to many different places. A bookshelf, a few other instruments that hung upon the wall, even the radio lacrima that sat in the corner. "Because watching you struggle is just as frustrating to me as it is to you."

She didn't want to do much of anything in his place, really. Books were boring, more music was boring, even the radio looked boring, but that just might be because she was in a sour mood. Still, she slugged over to it after getting up from the piano book, to turn the little lacrima on. It was piled in the corner atop some flimsy, papery books and, when she lifted it up, she saw the cover beneath.

It was so bright and colorful and nothing like any book she'd seen before. Dropping the lacrima (much to the irritation of Tom), she immediately moved to pick that up instead.

"You like that comic, huh?" was what Tom finally said after some grumbles and scolding over her potentially breaking his radio. "Tasha? You can look at it, if you want."

No. She really couldn't. Or shouldn't, rather. Her father was insistent, even with her brothers, that mind numbing reading material. Inappropriate, even, was the names he used. They should read only things that enriched them. Or, rather, that he enjoyed.

That was the crux of the entire thing, wasn't it? Her father only liked for them to do things that he enjoyed. And he didn't enjoy comic books, so they weren't supposed too either.

But it was too late.

She was taken immediately.

He let her take a few home, Tom did, and after she mentioned how she wasn't supposed to had such a thing, he only winked and promised to keep it a secret if she did. But how could she? For awhile there, yeah, she could, but eventually, she found that her love went much further than just reading the comic books, but rather also place paper over them and tracing all of the interesting characters and even, sometimes, trying to draw them all on her own. The latter part didn't go too well, but she was trying. She was learning.

It happened because of the reasons listed before of why getting out of the house was a treat. Siblings could be the best people in the world to hang out with one minute and absolutely tear you to shred the next. She hadn't meant to break her brother's toy. Honest. But she had. Which meant he had to tattle on her to their father about her drawings and, in by extension, the comic books she was hiding under her mattress.

"Thomas," her father growled at him, quite curtly, the next time they saw one another and that fire in his eyes was just as filled was hate as it was when addressing his wife.

But it didn't matter. Not when her father took all of the comics and threw them out, even though they weren't hers or his to do so with. Not when he banned her from ever reading another. From ever drawing another one of her stupid character or anything, really. Not when he berated Thomas as if he were a little boy. Not when he forced her to go back to learning piano from that old hag who seemed all the more hateful, angry over been snubbed by the little girl in the first place. Not even when he threatened, should he ever see her with another comic or drawing anything of the sort ever again that he would flog her one good.

And not even when her own mother stood there and let it all happen, let the idiotic decree become the law of the land in their house simply because she was too tired to fight her husband on such a subjected as silly as keeping a child from doing something childish.

No.

No.

It hurt. She hated it. She cried. Sometimes. But it didn't matter. But the love had already formed. And that was what was important.

Nothing her father said from that point forth would ever stop her from pursuing her newfound passion. It grew, of course, with her, as she grew. As she hid it, from him. Saved up jewels on her own, in secret, for her own art supplies. Learned that no one was trustworthy, not even the siblings you were so close to it felt like they were a part of you. She learned to keep her love to herself and not let anyone else in on it. They would only ruin it.

Most of all, she knew she couldn't do what her father wanted. Even without her art, she probably wouldn't have been able to. It was never in her. What was in her sisters. Her brothers. She thought it was, somewhere, deep down, but the older she got…

She didn't like to listen to others.

She didn't like to follow commands.

She didn't like to listen to her elders or her peers. She didn't even really like holding power, even, over her younger siblings or the nieces and nephews she had. No. Tasha didn't like being alone, but she liked having power on her own, over herself and only herself. She needed to be her own person and, at sixteen, she set out to do that.

When she returned that follow year, destroyed and crushed that so quickly she'd discovered how harsh the world was, how dangerous, how demoralizing, she came expecting everything he threw at her. Her father. The harsh words and demands of compliance. Even, maybe, not accepting her back. That was possible. That was very possible.

But instead, she found that no one was really happy she was back, mostly, or sad. Angry. Disappointed. Mostly aloof. Because something had happened.

"Is she going to be okay?" she recalled asking her brother who broke the news to her, not soon after her arrival. "Mom isn't...dying, is she?"

He let out a sort of sigh at that before assuring simply, "The doctor's will do what they can."

They would. And they did. It all turned out fine, in the end, but back then, it felt as if everything was crashing down.

That was the thing about running away from it all. Ignoring the past. You think it gets left in the pristine condition you put it in. Waiting for you. But it doesn't. Like an old lacrima in the blistering summer heat of an attic, not all things are structurally sound enough to just turn your back on. Forget about for awhile. You might come back and find them fine, yes, but never how you left them. And more often then not, completely ruined.

Her father, as bizarre as it was, turned out to be the only one that seemed to care that she was back. Or at least had something serious to say to her about it. Yes, her siblings listened to her tales and the friends in town she'd equally deserted wanted to know just what she'd gotten into (nothing good), but it was her father who commanded her to eat with him one day, alone, in the dining room. Which was fine as the older children were all married off by that point and, with their mother in the hospital, the few younger ones that hung around had been sent with their siblings until her return.

They didn't expect their father to watch them, did they?

Or want him to, probably, actually.

Tasha was broke though, if not broken, and had little else to do other than accept. He'd let her back into the hosue with no questions asked so far and, well, honestly, she was expecting him to tell her that now that she'd returned, he wanted her to get all the younger children back home and begin caring for them. She was already preparing for this fate, honestly, if not a worse one (she didn't think her father would be so cruel to marry her off so young, but she didn't put him passed him), but then he did something odd.

"What is it you carry around with you?" he grumbled to her the afternoon before their meal. "To keep your art in? A booklet or something?"

"A few," she responded in surprise as the man only waved her off and continued on down the hall.

"Bring it to dinner then."

So she did. With a bit of hesitance, of course. She was fearful the man would purposely destroy it. So she didn't bring anything special. Just a sketchbook she kept for random practice. At worst, she'd loose a few doodles and some anatomy practice, but nothing major.

It was odd though, the two of them eating all alone. She sat at her normal place at the dining table while he, of course, sat at the head, and it just felt strange. She couldn't remember the last time that she was alone with her father, but it definitely was disconcerting.

"What happened to you, then?" he finally asked after some uncomfortable silence after the butler left them there, in the big room, all alone with only their food, one another, and their resentments. "Tasha? Where did you go?"

"Away."

"Where?"

"Does it matter?"

"You didn't shack up with some man, did you?"

"Father-"

"Not if it makes a difference, anyhow, now. Nothing makes a difference now, really."

She frowned some, look to him then in a childish hope of catching some real emotion from him.

"Because mother is sick?"

He snorted then, rather loudly, and he'd seemed to age so much, in the year that she'd been away. Or had his hair always had so many strands of gray.

"Because who's going to marry you now? Who would I want to subject that too, anyways? Won't even listen to your own damn father. Why would I hand you off to a husband you would disrespect further? You've never listened. Ever. Hard headed. A terrible child, even from birth."

Frowning then, Tasha thought about leaving. Thought about getting up. Running off again. Only that time she wouldn't come back. She'd die out there, as penniless as she found herself before she fled back to the safety net of her family. It would be better than being near the man for another second.

Absence added forgetfulness, fine, but disillusionment was also a very heavy hand that could be dealt. A year away from the man didn't make her long for him, in no way, shape, or form, but it did give her the appearance of soft edges. The sting of his quips and put downs were softened and, especially wight the thought of her losing her mother just being presented to her, well, she honestly thought...she thought…

"Did you even look for me?"

He snorted again and she forgot how much she hated that sound.

"Did you want to be found?"

They were at a truce there. As she shook her head and started to get up to leave though, the man only reached for his glass of wine and spoke once more.

"Are you going to show it to me? Tasha?" He waved his free hand at her. "Your art?"

She didn't want to. She really didn't want to. But, for some reason, she found herself going over to him anyways and slamming the notebook down on the table, making the man give her quite the look, but he didn't look at it until she returned to her seat. Even then she was waiting for something. Something dramatic. Something evil. Something so like her father that she couldn't even stand it.

Instead, he only opened it at first, glanced through it, then at her, then back down at it, turning the pages slowly and with some sort of thought. Then, after a long sigh, he shook his head.

"I don't want you here, Tasha." Before she could protest though, he added, "And you do not wish to be here. Do you? You never have. Your sisters...even your brothers… You're not special, you know? You think you are though. You always have. You know the difference between them and you, Tasha? It's not that you're talented or that you're wittier or more cunning. No. It's that they knew what they had to do to get what they want. You never knew. You thought that plowing ahead on your own would get you there. And did it? Must not have, since you're back here, once more, with me-"

"What do you want?" she finally cut him off and that got her a glare, but she didn't care. Not in the slightest. "Father? What do you want me to say? Or do? If you're going to kick me out-"

"I have friend...a friend of a friend, honestly, who I've spoken to you about. You'll train under him. For a fee. And, if he likes you, perhaps, if that's how it works. I honestly do not know, with you...artists. Is that what you consider yourself? Some sort of artist, Tasha? Fine. Go play with the other ones, somewhere else. Away from me. Do not return again. I don't...I don't want to see you again."

She was at a loss. But not pleased. In the slightest.

"I… Mother is sick. I can't just leave her! What if she… I can't go. I won't. I-"

"This is a one time offer, Tasha. For once you will listen. Or else you can go back out on the street and find your own way again. If that's what you want, fine, but I am offering you, only once, to go and do as you please. If not… Are you that hard headed, girl? If someone tells you to live your dream, you refuse to do it because you yourself are not in control of it? Do you not know what the others would give for me to make them that offer? If your mother being sick hurts you so, then pretend as if she's well. Just as you did for the whole year you were gone. Pretend that we are all fine here.  _Go_. You will never have an opportunity like this again."

"You don't even understand, do you?" And she was crying because, in that moment, she truly believed she was not only being forced from her home, but also her mother who she cared for in some facet. It was different, on her own terms. Now...now… "You never understood. Why are you doing this? Do you really hate me that much?"

"No." And he put down his cup and closed the sketchbook. "You're my daughter. I'm doing this because I love you."

She was close to being seventeen. So very close. She could do whatever she wanted. Outside of his house, fine, but one of her siblings would take her in. Her second older brother, he cared for her a lot. He'd endure the wrath of their father. She knew he would. And yet…

It became for the best, of course. 'Training under' was a weird way of putting it, but her father's 'friend' of sorts did need a new apprentice, and their styles were different, she was difficult to teach as she was so stuck in her ways at such a young age, but they got long. Ooh, they got along. Perhaps more than her father would have appreciated. Btu he wasn't there. No one was. And the man knew people who knew people who knew people and she outgrew him eventually. They out grew one another. She moved on and it was just an endless ladder, really, of people and places and sometimes it was hard.

It was always hard, really.

There wasn't much money in most things, but the things that there was money in felt fleeting until you grasped a hold of them. Held them tightly. You trick yourself into believing they never fade. But they do, of course they do, but that was art.

That's what he told her, that first night they met. He was the first man she was ever...well. It was immediate or anything. He really did seem to think, of her as a stupid teenage girl who's rich father was pawning off on him and, oh, she was, then, but then suddenly, she seemed to be much more.

She got the letter, eventually, from her sister Nancy, that her mother had improved and seemed like she'd pull through and, well, what better news was there than that? Except...it just made her feel a bit empty, it did. Tasha remembered trying to explain it to many people through the years, but it just never falling out of her mouth quite right. It was difficult.

It wouldn't be for many years that she finally found someone who completely understood what she meant. Or at least pretended to. He was convincing, anyways.

She met Laxus on a particularly terrible trip across Magnolia where inspiration was zapped from her and she felt as if she'd never sale a single painting again. She'd end up broke once more and have to find menial work to get her back home. Or find a new home, maybe, even and just abandon her old.

It was while she was in deep consideration over both topics when he showed up at the small tavern and sat down right beside her. Right beside her.

But didn't speak to her. Or look at her.

She knew that game.

And yet…

There was a certain allure about the man. She'd heard there was a mage in town and she picked up immediately form his overall aura that he certainly was the one. The air felt more electric with him around and…

It was so stupid. Even speaking to him. But after downing a beer straight, he glanced at her, finally, and he had this glint in his eye and, well, it'd just been a while.

It had been a long while.

The draw she'd felt to him, originally, had been sexual, but the one that attracted him to her seemed to be...so much more. She couldn't know, of course, of the thoughts Mirajane Strauss had already sown in his head, the fears, the doubts, but the hope.

The hope was a big one.

And he wanted to talk. So fucking much. He kept gushing, the whole time after, as they laid there. She listened, of course, but a lot of what he said seemed rambled and rushed. Like he felt like he couldn't get it all out in time.

"Do you have to leave or something?" she asked him when it all just acme out. "Laxus? Tomorrow?"

He looked conflicted, but only for a few moments. Just as quickly, his head was shaking and he buried it back into her neck and she laughed perhaps too loudly for such thin walls in the inn, but she didn't care. He didn't care. It was just them, it felt like, for those hours. Days. Was it a week? Was it more?

When he left, he had all sorts of promises on his tongue and she didn't believe a single one of them. She wasn't the little apprentice that just wanted someone to love her, just notice her, really, appreciate her and her art and what she thought and said. No, not anymore. She'd grown a lot over the years. Which, yes, did included many partners that led to regression, but she was in a good place, honestly, when she met Laxus. Maybe not financially or directionally, but romantically? Yes. Definitely. She was happy.

But she could be so much more happier, as she found out.

Laxus didn't lie. He did a lot though, actually. But not to her. Which was a huge red flag, of course, especially how upfront about it he was, but she still…

Home didn't need her. Immediately. If she hung around in the area long enough, got to know him some more, then…

She didn't know.

She didn't know anything, really, about what she wanted from him. He seemed like such a well put together man and yet, as she'd seen that first night, there was something wrong with him. No one is as strong as they appear, underneath, but him…

"You're a mess," she remarked one night as he leaned against the hotel building she was staying at, puffing at a cigar. It looked out of place, really, to be doing such a thing there. Not at all as regal as her father always made smoking them seem. And yet…

In one of his silent moods (she could fall into those herself), Laxus only puffed some and considered her words before, slowly, remarking, "So are you."

"So are we all," she corrected." She had a camera with her. She wanted to go and take some photographs, she said, of things. To remind her of this place. Maybe she could get some inspiration from them later, when she was away from them. She wouldn't be in this part of the Kingdom again for a long while.

"Unless," he added as she told him she was going to head out to do this, "you are."

And she gave him a look then, out of curiously, before she rose the camera to her eye and took an out of focus shot of him, there, making a face at her. That one he made when he thought he was right. It looked even worse, probably, with the cigar dangling from his mouth. She wouldn't know. She'd lose the camera before she got it developed.

But it was well enough.

She found inspiration in other ways.

It hurt, the first time that she nicked her tongue along his sharpest of canines and she didn't like it. Blood was never a turn on for her. But the way he laughed at her, at first, then became so concerned when she shoved at his chest and rolled away from them on the bed, it made her feel…

"You don't love me, do you, Laxus?"

He was very busy, when she asked that, lacing up his boots, and only asked in his deadpanned tone, "What's love?"

"Laxus-"

"Do you want me to?"

"Does it matter if I do?"

"It matters what I'll tell you in you response."

"I thought you'd never lie to me?"

He groaned too, and said her name, before looking over his shoulder at her, to stare dead in her eyes, as he said, "I guess I do. If that's what this feeling is. I honestly don't know."

It was good enough for her. Terrifying for him, but good enough for her.

Laxus never asked about her family. She took it at first to mean he didn't care, but that couldn't be it. No way. He seemed so invested in her and everything and, oh, man, when she met his friends, she finally understood why he never brought it up.

He wasn't used to knowing people who actually had them.

It made her feel pretty shitty to hear about poor Bickslow (as creepy as she found him) and his life. About Evergreen (as big a bitch as she appeared) and her wretched, abusive father. And Freed. Nice, kind Freed (who she clearly felt resented and hated her from the start) and the things Laxus refused to even share with her.

It all made sense.

Why did life always make so much sense?

So she brought it up, one day when he was talking about how shitty Ivan was (who she also found to be evil and disgusting and it really mattered, didn't it, who painted the picture) about her own father. Laxus seemed surprised, when she chimed in with her own story, and it felt childish, really, when placed beside his. Her father never tried to carve a lacrima out of her body.

"No," Laxus said with a shrug. "He didn't. Just tried to destroy your entire life because…you were a shit child? Sounds pretty similar to me."

Only if you squint.

He thought that he would hate her. Thought that he would resent her. When she said that her mother getting sick and then better….didn't right all the wrongs in her life. Didn't make her feel anything, really. Didn't bring her to outright tears.

That she didn't appreciate her mother getting through her sickness when his had been ripped away from him when he needed her the most.

But Laxus didn't say any of those things. Didn't think them, even, she was nearly certain.

Only shrugged and said, "Fuck 'em then."

It really seemed to his motto in life.

She had to tell them, of course, all of them, when Laxus proposed to her. Had to take him down there to meet them. All of them. Each brother and every sister. Made him pretend to give a shit about her nieces and nephews and told him when he shook her father's hand to look him in the eye and try not to rage at him, okay? It was best to just get through things.

"If you just press through the things you don't want to do," she sighed to him, after being forced to learn this lesson all on her own, "eventually you get to do the things you do."

Not all of his it was pleasant. Her father didn't like him, he wasn't a fan of mages, but her mother… She hadn't seen her mother in so long and…

She was glad she was there.

It might not have meant much when she was still figuring out her place in life, but to know she was there now that she'd found it, still around, to maybe, one day, reconcile, to maybe one day become close, maybe even friends…

Options were nice, at least.

Options were always nice.

There was one highlight though. Presenting her brother-in-law Tom (and, by proxy, her sister) some nice artwork to hang in the house they'd just recently moved in, as they'd begged her to do for ages, made the circle all feel complete.

"I don't understand it," Nancy told her with a polite smile as they hung it right there in the entrance way, for all to see. "But...I like it."

"I love it," Tom told her and clapped Tasha on the shoulder as he stared at it. "And I think I understand it perfectly."

But how could he?

How could a darkened face before a blue hued sky with a red tipped cigar dangling from its mouth mean anything to him? It couldn't. It wasn't something to interpret or understand, after all. Nancy only meant she didn't get why that, out of all the things Tasha had rolling around in her brain, was what she gave them, but it was just as well.

Art wasn't always just about being understood.

Sometimes it was just about being accepted.

The thing that killed her about it all was how well Laxus meant. With her. He always meant well. And yet he'd done it. The one thing she'd always known he would do and the one thing she'd also somehow never managed to prepared for him to do.

He broke his promise.

He lied.

He lied to her.

About the biggest thing in the world.

And now she didn't know how they were going to overcome it.

"Mira's not going to like this, you know," he complained as if she knew the woman. She didn't. Never even met her.

Still, with a hallow smile, she sent him on his way. "I know."

She wanted him to start exerting his rights. That's how he put it, anyways. She thought of it more as actually taking care of a responsibility that you've neglected for years and years just because it wasn't of interest to you. Just because it wasn't something that fit into your perfect world.

Laxus was going to love his daughter.

She was going to love his daughter.

Mirajane Strauss was going to love the fact that they loved her daughter.

And then they could all be one big happy, functional family.

Or else.

He was right, of course. Mirajane vetoed the idea immediately.

"She doesn't know you, Laxus," she told him and her blue eyes flashed those dark shades and man, did it just get colder in the room? "She's not going to go...where with you? Where is it that you live? Exactly? She won't even go down the street with you! You're a stranger. You-"

"She's my daughter, Mira."

"By blood only."

At least they were officially seeing eye to eye on that part of things.

"Then you come," he complained as he stood in the Strauss kitchen, late one evening. He'd taken Aura out with him, to dinner, along with her mother and aunt, where the three adults seemed to be unable to focus on the three-year-old, truly, as they spent far more time glaring at one another and hating the situation they all felt as if the other had gotten them into. "Mirajane. You come down, with her, and I'll… I'll put you up in a hotel. You can meet Tasha-"

"I don't want-"

"Mira, it doesn't matter what you want anymore. We did three years of what you want-"

"If you're just only going to ever bring that up-"

"What else is there to bring up? Huh? When you-"

"I can't. Anyways." Mira took a deep breath then, from where she was standing over by the counter. "Laxus. Right now. I've taken too much time off from the hall recently and-"

"Mira, you can't be serious."

"Well, I am, so if you want this to happen, why doesn't your wife-"

"She has a name."

"What difference does it-"

"I'll go."

That came from Lisanna. She was at the table, looking between the two of them, at the table, looking back and forth from Laxus by the kitchen doorway to where Mira was standing. It was tarting to hurt her neck, honestly, moving it back and forth at such angles.

"What?" Mira made a face. "Lisanna-"

"What do you think the woman's going to do, Mira? Kidnap Aura?" She even rolled her eyes, Lisanna did. "By inviting her demonic mother over to her home?"

"Laxus, did that, actually, so-"

"Mirajane-"

"If Lisanna goes," Laxus cut them off, "can Aura go? Mira? I won't… You know that I'm not going to do anything without your permission, but you have to work with me. On this. You have to-"

"Fine!" And she dropped her arms then, from where they'd been crossed, and even huffed some. "Fine. If that's what you want, Laxus, fine. But if she so much as cries to come home, Lisanna is taking her back there. She's not an animal. She's a child. A human. She has feelings and emotions too. If she wants to leave or get away from you or...or Tasha, then-"

"I'm not vindictive, Mirajane." His arms dropped too. "I'm just trying to make this work."

But it wouldn't. They knew it wouldn't. Lisanna knew, Laxus knew, Mira knew. Aura probably knew, at least a little, maybe, as her mother told her she was going on a short trip with Lisanna that next morning.

"And Laxus," she added in the most hype she could put in her voice (for a woman that faked so much over the years, it was a pitiful attempt). "But not Mommy. Is that okay? You can take whatever you want with you. It'll only be for a short while. Then when you get back-"

"Why?" her daughter cut her off and that was her new thing. She asked that about anything and everything constantly in those days. "Mommy?"

"Because," Mira sighed, knowing it would never make sense, really, to the little girl, "it's just what we have to do. What we don't want to. You just have to get through it."

This wasn't a satisfactory answer, of course, but Aura was already busy deciding how she was going to shove all of her dresses and shirts and shoes and stuffed animals into her tiny little suitcase she used for when she slept over at Uncle Elf's house.

It wouldn't be easy, but if anyone could do it, she certainly could.

"You and your wife won't really kidnap Aura, will you?" Lisanna asked Laxus on the train ride as he grit his teeth, the little girl slept against her aunt, and the younger woman only stared across at him, from her seat. "Laxus? Because I really don't need to have Mira on my case about this. At a time like this."

"Time like this?" he asked through gritted teeth as he tried to think of everything other than the fact he had to hurl and, should he, he'd probably do it on his precious, sleeping little daughter who still seemed pretty suspect about him.

But Lisanna wouldn't answer and he knew, anyways. Some of it, at least. Sisters, especially two as bonded the Strausses, were beyond him, but he knew about betrayal.

He knew all about betrayal.

"Get me through the next few days, Lisanna, without your sister having to be called, "he finally sighed as his eyes turned to out the window, hoping something out there would calm his stomach. "If you were ever worth anything, this has to be it. You weren't given a second chance for nothing, were you?'

That made her glare at him, seriously then, before remarking, "No, but you probably were."

There was a grin then, in his teeth gritting, as he agreed. "You have no idea."


	12. Coalesce

Aura had ridden trains before. Perhaps not a lot, given the fact that her mother was more of a homebody in those days and her aunt and uncle mostly only left Magnolia for jobs, but she'd gone shopping before, in other towns and such. Never had she ridden one for so long before though.

She was more than ready to get where she was going when they arrived.

"Laxus is sick," she stated to her aunt quite clearly (well, as clearly as slurred speech could be, at least) as the women watched the man tumble off the train with them. "Poor Laxus."

"Poor Laxus," Lisanna agreed, though it was filled with a lot less sincerity.

The man carried his and Aura's bag though (except for her sparkly pink backpack that she sported with pride as it held her most prized possessions; her stuffed animals) and only muttered for them to follow him home.

"Hopefully," he added with a bit of a sigh, "Tasha will be home."

The walk wasn't long, but as they went, Lisanna kept glancing down at her niece who was clutching her hand nicely and not pulling away. She seemed rather unaware, really, of much of anything, and for that Lisanna was glad. She was fearful that they'd have a meltdown by that point and, while she wasn't so sure about this whole buddy-buddy with Laxus and his wife thing, she did know that it was better for her niece if, at least, things went well.

Maybe they all could coexist.

It was the goal, after all.

"You sure live nice, Laxus," Lisanna remarked though with little surprise. The man had been hording money through childhood. There were rumors about his wealth (a shaky term for it, really, as it wasn't nearly as much as some speculated) considering the high amount of S-Class jobs he lorded over the others and, from what Lisanna had glimpsed of his wife in the past, she seemed rather well off herself. Still, the idea that he was living high and large while her sister was living paycheck to paycheck was…

Just desserts, maybe, considering Mirajane's deception, and maybe not even really that horrible. It didn't matter what care, if any, Laxus ever provided for her sister; the woman will still work insane hours up at the guild. It was what she wanted and loved to do.

But Lisanna had resolved to be pissed about everything relating to her sister and, by proxy, Laxus.

The man only grunted though, as they stopped in front of a two-storied bricked house. The size, honestly, was nothing special and while he saw it as nice enough, not anything to elicit comment. Of course, it was always hard to get one of those out of him anyways.

To Aura though, it looked massive. And it had a little wire fence around it, kind of like the guildhall! Then there were the big trees and the front porch, and the way that there was a little window, at the tippy-top of the house, an attic probably, positioned to center beneath a point where two halves of the roof met and, yes, Aura thought Laxus lived in a palace, basically.

Lisanna felt nerves for her niece though, as the girl clearly had none of her own, as they walked into the home. Aura tried to run free from her, the second Laxus opened the door, but Lisanna held her hand tightly and wouldn't allow for this.

The action got the stink eye from the little girl.

"Tasha!" Laxus stood in the entrance of the house, shouting for his wife as he dropped the bags. "They're here."

She was judged, of course, immediately, the woman was, through two very different sets of eyes. Lisanna had seen the woman before, only a handful of times, but still she found herself giving Tasha a strong gaze. She came to a lot of really mean, baseless conclusions that, as soon as they entered her head, she immediately felt guilty for even thinking them, causing her to drop her eyes and shuffle her feet some. Her three-year-old niece saw things much differently, of course.

She thought that Tasha was very pretty. She thought most women were pretty, though, actually. Like her aunt and mother and Ever (though she wasn't too pretty when she was being mean) and Lucy and Cana and a whole bunch of others. But Tasha fell in line with her notions of what it meant to be pretty. She was a normal height and weight, had kind enough eyes, she liked the shininess of her black hair and the way that she smiled, just a bit, right at her.

Aura returned it easily.

But then Tasha's attention turned to Lisanna and, rather than remembrance clouding her face, it was uncertainty.

"Mirajane?" she asked with a bit of a question as she approached as, clearly, the woman was not. Lisanna had aged, of course, over the years, but she still looked far too young to entertain Laxus in any sort of manner.

Shaking her head, the woman's younger sister only replied, "Lisanna. We've met before. At your wedding? And once, when I was with the Thunder Legion at-"

"Mira couldn't come," Laxus spoke over the younger woman then. "So her sister did. She had to work."

Tasha and him had some sort of weird stare going on then, but it was broken soon enough as the woman only spoke.

"Well," she said with something of a smile, "we're glad to have you all the same, Lisanna. And yes, I suppose I do remember meeting you. I'm sorry that your sister couldn't come though."

"The guild's pretty important to her," was the best that Lisanna could offer up. "More than Master, maybe, even."

A comfortable and yet unstable silence befell them all then and Laxus didn't do good with these sorts of things. Awkward things. He usually tried to squirrel his way out of them as soon as possible. Or just flat out separate himself from them. He was good at that. A harsh word or two and he'd just leave, no closure for the people involved. He was the most important thing, after all, to himself. If he was uncomfortable, the only thing that mattered was making himself so once more.

But, as he glanced over at Tasha, he remembered that wasn't true. Not anymore. Not for awhile. Her happiness was what was important. Their happiness, really, rather. Their comfort. And she wanted this. She was pushing for this. For some reason that was far beyond him, she wanted this. Needed this.

He wasn't going to fight her on it.

His eyes fell lower then, though, and he remembered that it wasn't only Tasha he had to worry about.

He said her name, still, before reaching down to pat at the head of the child beside him (who only frowned at the touch as, honestly, it was the most affection the man had shown her so far) before telling his wife, "This is Aura."

The child in question was quickly distracted from the man and instead captivated by his wife once more. She even bent down, so that they could look one another in the eyes, and smiled in a way that melted the very few reservations she'd formed so far.

"Hi," the older woman greeted and, with a grin of her own, the child returned the sentiment easily.

"Hi," Aura repeated back though she rocked on her feet some, in that way young kid did, when they were uncertain of what what was coming next.

"Did you think that maybe you wanted to have a look around the house?" Tasha asked to which the girl very quickly nodded her head. "I bet there's a lot of fun things to find."

Aura was excited by the thought but, as Tasha stood the young girl found herself glancing back at her aunt, hesitant for the moment.

"You can go," Lisanna said after a moment before her eyes turned to Laxus. "I'll be here. With Laxus."

She wanted to see everything, the three-year-old did, and without anyone that seemed to be willing to reprimand her currently, she took off running, in the house, with little caution or fear. The first thing she did, of course, was rush right over to the staircase as the entire concept was very fascinating to her. Stairs. In your house. Did Laxus live in a guildhall or something?

As Tasha went after her though, it left the slayer and Lisanna alone. He only watched in silence for a few moments before bending down to snatch his bag from where it set and turned to walk off himself. But he didn't head for the stairs.

"You want a drink or something? We got beer. Do you drink? I wouldn't know."

"You don't spend a lot of time around the hall these days, I guess," Lisanna offered up as, with a sigh, she dropped her bag beside her niece's before following. "Now that you're married."

"Yeah," Laxus agreed gruffly. "That's why."

"You know, I don't have a friend that has this. Like what you have."

"A kitchen?"

"A married life. A real home. And yes, a kitchen like this. Like, who needs two ovens, Laxus? Seems a bit greedy."

He only pulled open the fridge though, to grab two bottles out of it, before remarking, "Now there's the Lisanna I'm used to. Done with your shitty phase, eh? Or just to me?"

She made a bit of a face from his words and only came to stand at the little island in the center of the kitchen, snatching up the beer when he slid it to her. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you don't."

"It's none of your business, anyways."

"I agree."

"So-"

"Your dorky little friends will never live this sort of life, Lisanna, because they'll never be attractive enough to attract such a partner as I have and they certainly will never be skilled enough to complete the high level of jobs that I'm able to take and, therefore, can't afford kitchen's with nice, greedy kitchen's."

Lisanna only stared at him for a moment before saying, "There's the Laxus I'm used to. Done with your nice phase? Back to shitty? Or is it just me?"

"Watch it."

"You watch it."

He'd never had a beer with a Strauss, Laxus hadn't, but he'd probably imagine Lisanna would be the best one to do it with. And, as they took their drinks into his living room, they only sat with a space between them on the couch and fell into silence for a bit.

"What are your wife and Aura doing?" Lisanna finally questioned as she glanced up, as if to see through the floor.

"Who," Laxus sighed into his beer bottle, "knows."

Not much, really. The days hadn't past by much since Tasha first told Laxus, in no uncertain terms, that they would be inviting the little girl over, so the extra room was still in the process of being transformed into a room for her, but Tasha had been kind enough to buy her some toys which, in the now empty room, Aura was very busy inspecting.

"Do you like them?' Tasha asked as Aura inspected the stackability of her new blocks.

"Yes," the little girl said with a nod before, suddenly, a thought hit her and she started to take her backpack off. "Laxus gave me a 'resent too!"

Interested, Tasha watched the little girl literally dump her backpack full of stuffed in stuffed animals all over the hardwood. After tossing a few well-worn (adequately loved) toys to the side, she produced the doll the man had presented to her previously.

At the sight of it, Tasha grimaced.

"She's ugly," Aura agreed with a nod of her head. "But mine."

That was what mattered.

The day was...weird, to say the least. Even when Aura and Tasha rejoined the other two, the balance was a bit off. Tasha seemed far more interested in keeping Aura into the conversations (which were fleeting and frivolous at best) while Lisanna seemed skeptical and Laxus acted indifferent.

Overall, it went exactly how they all envisioned, really. There was slight tension, maybe, a lack of common ground between the three adults, and mostly, was that disgusting formality that went along with first meetings that it was kind of disgusting. No blow ups, no snide remarks (though Laxus did bite his tongue some), and the stereotypical cattiness that should have sprang its head at least once seemed absent.

It was so adult that it was shocking, really, to the two members of Fairy Tail. Not so much the non.

And Aura just seemed happy when, at lunch, Laxus let her have a milkshake.

"What did you guys wanna do from here?" Laxus asked though, as they stood outside the restaurant after the meal. He was speaking to Lisanna, but looking at Tasha. "I mean, you can come back to the house, I guess, or we can just get your stuff and I could take you to a hotel? I'm sure the kid- Aura. I'm sure Aura has to take a nap eventually, right?"

He hoped.

Nothing against the kid. He liked her well enough so far. But he needed some time to himself. This whole being around her (and by extension her aunt or mother) was really starting to grate on him. There were only so many hours out of the day that Laxus Dreyar could be kid friendly and they were definitely running up on those.

Laxus was mostly glad to find that his wife didn't push it, as she'd been pushing so many other things recently. She let Lisanna agree with Laxus to little dissension and then didn't even go with them to the hotel. Just left him to it.

Then again, the woman was already getting what she wanted out of this, he was pretty sure. No need to hammer it all home.

Aura had fallen kind of quiet on the walk to the hotel, and Lisanna ended up carrying her for most of it. He was right, after all. Though naps were falling somewhat out of favor with her, she still did need them to a certain extent. Especially after such a busy day.

He carried their bags for them, even after checking them in, all the way to the room. Aura only stared at him with sleepy eyes though, from her aunt's arms, and hardly even waved when prompted by the woman.

"We'll meet then? For dinner? At my house?" Laxus reiterate, but Lisanna only pushed him out of the room and insisted that yes, they would, and to just go already.

Which was rude, but Laxus was more than glad to be done with the two of them for a bit anyways.

Back in the room though, Lisanna only hurriedly got Aura ready for her nap before pulling out her communication lacrima from her bag.

She might be pissy at her sister at the moment, fine, but she was still her sister.

"So?" Mira insisted once the two were finally connected. Lisanna could tell from the background that her sister was in the storage room. It was probably stock day, where Kinana got to do all the fun stuff like waitressing and bar tending, while Mira usually forced Lisanna to come donw and help her tally all the inventory and stuff.

Gross.

Lisanna was so glad that she was missing that.

"So," Lisanna began as she sat on one of the two beds in the room, Aura snoozing in the other, "Laxus, like, lives so large. You have no idea. Mira, he has two ovens. Two. Do you know what we could do with two ovens?"

"Lisanna, you don't use our one oven."

"Stacked. On top of one another. It's absurd. Is this wealth? Or greed?"

"I'm really not interested in his kitchen layout, Lisanna." Then Mira paused. "Well, maybe a little."

"You'd love it."

"But what about-"

"His bathrooms? You'd think there'd be more, considering how big his stupid house is, but I guess rich people don't-"

"Lisanna."

"She's normal, Mira, I guess," her sister finally gave in. "Tasha. I don't get any...malice from her or anything. I don't really get anything from her. I can't figure her and Laxus out, like, them as a couple, but-"

"I'm really not concerned with their marriage, thanks."

"Well, what do you want to know then?"

"I don't know, Lisanna. Like...how was Aura?" Mira finally asked. "Did she do okay? Is she worried about when she's coming home? Should I talk with her?"

"She's sleeping," Lisanna said with a roll of her eyes. "And she's been fine. I mean, I don't think she even really gets it yet, you know? Has anyone even explained it to her?"

"Explained what to her?"

"You know, Mira that...that Laxus is her father or whatever," Lisanna said with a bit of a frown. "I mean, she's not going to just understand that on her own, you know. Someone's going to have to tell her. You don't want it to be him, do you?"

"I'm going to explain it to her, Lisanna." And Mira almost sounded a bit peeved just from the questioning of it. "In time. Right now, I just want to wait and make sure that Laxus isn't going to run off or flake or… I'm just waiting for the right time. That's all."

"Because lying's done you so well these past few years, Mira."

She gave her a look then. No, that look. The look. It was so strong that Lisanna could just about feel it through the lacrima. Almost.

"I'll talk to you another time, Lisanna," was all the older sister said in response. "Take care of Aura."

And when her sister's figure disappeared from the crystal ball, all Lisanna could see looking back at her was her own reflection.

She didn't find that she liked it much.

Laxus, at the moment, was doing quite similar. But he liked his reflection. He liked it a lot. Not quite 'falling into the abyss levels', but pretty close.

"Why are you trimming your beard?"

"I wanna look nice, Tasha," he complained when the woman came into the bathroom to watch him. Annoying. Distracting. He didn't glance at her though, not even her reflection. Only focused on getting his facial hair all in perfect, tidy order. "Should I not?"

"Look nice for what? Your daughter?"

"No," he grumbled."For dinner. We're going somewhere nice, so I need to look nice."

"Nicer than the dinner we had lunch at?"

"A lot," he replied. "Lisanna's never been in this town before. Should we not wanna take her somewhere nice?"

"You wanna take," she said slowly as she rested her palms on the bathroom counter and stared at his reflection as well, watching him shave, "a three-year-old to a nice restaurant?"

"Yes."

"Laxus."

"What?"

"Have you been around a three-year-old?"

"I've been around this three-year-old."

"They can be loud and uncooperative and I know how you get when things go wrong in front of other people."

"How do I get?"

"You get embarrassed. And mean. Do you really want Mirajane's sister going back and telling her that you yelled at her daughter?"

"I thought it was our daughter. And weren't you the one that told me that it didn't matter what Mira thought?"

"Laxus-"

"What do you want to do then, Tasha?" And he tossed his razor down, but this was more to do with him finishing the job. He looked great, if he could say so himself. "Huh? Because I do not want to eat at that diner again."

"It was nice."

"It was horrible. It stank."

"Did not."

"You aren't as affected by scent as I am."

She made a face then, even tilting her head at him. "Yeah, I think we both all know about how great your scent is, huh?"

"Tasha-"

"Why don't I make something?" she offered then. "Here? I can go out right now, to the market, and-"

"Tasha." And it was his turn to give her a look, saying her name differently the second time around. "Come on."

"Come on and what, Laxus?"

"You're not going to cook dinner for them."

"Why aren't I?"

"Just… Stop, okay? Enough."

"Enough what?"

"You're not her parent," he complained. "You're not going to be. Even if this all works out, I don't want you breathing down my neck all the time about her. I brought her out here. I thought that would be enough. But you just keep pushing-"

"I'm not pushing anything."

"You've pushed me this whole time! And nothing I do is enough to get you to..."

He trailed off too because he always struggled with this. Anger towards his wife. He never rightly learned how to deal with it, being so angry at someone he loved so much. Hell, he tore Makarov's guildhall down over such a thing. In his mind, anger and yelling at a loved one turned directly into never seeing them again. He knew, of course, deep down, that this wasn't the case. That adults, especially ones in close relationships, but even deeper down was the little boy that watched arguments destroy his parents marriage and, eventually, dissolve it entirely, and that little boy didn't handle such arguments well.

"To what?" Tasha even raised her eyebrows, arms folding over one another. "Huh? Laxus?"

"To shut up," he finally hissed with a glare. "I went there, to confront Mira, to get all the voices in my head to stop fucking screaming about it. Now, because of that, I have you on me constantly making demands about it. Enough. She's my daughter. This is my deal. I've done your part of the deal. I brought her here, you met her. Whatever else I do is what I do. Alright?"

He did get a moment of peace, but only long enough for Tasha to give him this incredulous stare before she fired back with some thoughts of her own.

"This might be shocking to you, Laxus," she started with a glare, "but I'm doing this for you. For us. Not me. You think that in my magical plan of how our life would go, I ever thought that you'd be dumb enough to...what? Purposely get another woman pregnant?"

"It was before we-"

"It was dumb. And hiding it? From me? While letting me still get married to you and keeping me in the dark? Even dumber. But no, Laxus, I'm the bad person for trying to get you to do the right thing in this situation. I'm so sorry."

"I didn't say you were a bad person."

"No, you just said that I'm the one pushing you to do things that-"

"That I don't want to do? Yeah, you are. I didn't want to invite them here so soon. You did. And I did it. Why isn't that enough?"

"Why isn't it enough that you aren't even the one actively pushing to be in your child's life? Gee, Lax, I wonder."

"I'm the one that went there! To Magnolia. That brought this all out. So don't tell me about-"

"Why are we even fighting, Laxus?" she cut him off. "Huh? Because I want to make dinner for your daughter and her aunt? Do you know how crazy you are? What are you so mad about? This is how it's supposed to be! Are you that dense? Do you think that it's easy for me to just be so happy and upbeat about this? Because it's not. If it's hard on you, imagine being the actually innocent one in all of this, instead of just the two morons that decided, oh man, let's have a kid together even though we have no contingency plan for what happens after."

"There was a plan."

"Laxus-"

"There was! There-"

"I don't care." And she wasn't yelling anymore, like he still was, but the exasperation was far more obvious in her tone. Shaking her head, she only said, "I don't care about you and Mirajane. At all. The point is that we're stuck in this stupid situation because of you. So don't get mad at me for trying to make the best of it." Then, she almost walked away, but stopped suddenly as he seethed, just to say, "And don't ever tell me to shut up again, Laxus. Ever. You hear me? Because I'm not going to."

:The house was filled with contention for the rest of the afternoon. Even when Tasha went out to the market, Laxus only sulked about, replaying it all in his mind. Mostly, he just waned to get dinner over with.

Aura also seemed a bit skeptical about it all, when her aunt walked her back to Laxus' home. She felt like she'd seen more than enough of the man and, while his house and wife were nice enough, she was about ready to go home.

"We're gonna eat dinner with Laxus," Lisanna reminded her. "Don't you want to?"

Not necessarily, really, but she wasn't against it either.

Though her aunt would be a bit disappointed in them not going out, Aura actually found staying in to be much better. Laxus didn't, given what his wife made, but Aura was very pleased.

Tomato soup and grilled cheese. It wasn't as good as Mommy's or anything, but it was simple and basic and enough to sway the girl into behaving. Having much more experience dealing with younger children, Tasha understood this concept very well. Give them just enough to keep them satisfied.

Laxus, however, did not understand why his dinner had to be ruined (gross; he wasn't a child, why did he have to eat that) and following it, went to smoke a cigar on the back patio. Lisanna, who'd seemed a bit out of it since getting there, joined him after Tasha turned down her offer to assist with the dishes. Part of Laxus had to wonder where his daughter had gotten off to, but a bigger part of him just didn't want to be bothered.

Especially by Lisanna fucking Strauss.

It wasn't so much that he disliked the woman. He didn't. He didn't necessarily like her either, however. He mostly saw her as one of the younger members of the guild that, due to their age of originally joining, would never really mature in the eyes of most the older members. He recalled being really distraught (though he kept it to himself) at her death and relieved when he met her once more at Tenrou. Outside of that, they really had no interactions. She hung around with the Thunder Legion, a little, but he and her still ran in different circles.

In a normal setting, especially after she'd done something so kind for him (if she hadn't volunteered, there was no way Mira would have let Aura leave Magnolia), he'd be much more willing to at least be civil, but his civility had ended after he and Tasha's disagreement.

"What are you doing out here, Lisanna?" he complained as she rested her folded arms against the railing of his porch and stared out into the night. He was standing over in the corner, taking deep puffs of his cigar. "Huh?"

"I can't come look at your backyard?"

He only shook his head. "Why did you agree to come with me? Just to piss your sister off?"

"What difference does it make to you?"

"It doesn't."

"Then-"

"I just," he grumbled as he held his cigar away from his face so that she could hear him perfectly. No room for error. He'd been holding this in for awhile. "Really wish that all this fucking bullshit drama could be over with. I know how women are, you know. Mira and Tasha and you and all this shit is just going to continue to be piled back onto me and it's not right! I'm trying to do the right thing and-"

"Would you listen to yourself talk?"

"I love to listen to myself talk," he growled back though, perhaps, the intention in his statement was a bit lost in the phrasing.

"You're the one that gets all worked up over nothing. Constantly. Not 'the women'. Bleh. I've never met a more dramatic person than you, Laxus Dreyar."

"Bullshit."

"Laxus, you're the one that made it dramatic to begin with! Storming over to Mira's place, demanding to see Aura, then running back home to cry about it and whine about how unfair we all are."

"What do you know?"

"I know enough."

"You don't know anything. Don't pick a fight with me, Lisanna. I'm not like Mira. I won't let you get away with it."

"I'm not picking fights with Mira." And now she was the one put out. Frowning, she turned back to look out at the open yard. "She lied to me. Not the other way around."

"Get in line."

"At least Mira had a reason to lie to you. Why did she lie to me? I'm her sister."

"Why did she lie to me?" Laxus questioned right back, angered. "Huh? What benefit did all this do? If she wanted the kid all to herself-"

"You know that's not why."

"I know she gave me that bullshit about me coming back and-"

"She told me that she didn't tell you because she wanted you to be happy."

"This is happy, Lisanna? This is fucking with my marriage."

"Well, you did all this, but-"

"You-"

"Mira didn't want to ruin your new relationship," Lisanna told him then. "She told me that you were so happy and...and…"

"Yeah. Well, look where that got us?"

"She tried, Laxus. We all make mistakes." Then Lisanna shrugged some, before glancing over at him. "What are you really mad about though? It's not even that you've missed out on Aura, is it? It's just that your marriage has been thrown for a loop. What would you do, anyways? If Tasha told you tomorrow that she never wanted you to see Aura again? You'd do it, wouldn't you?"

He could only glare and, with a shake of her head, Lisanna sighed.

"Maybe you should figure yourself out before you start trying to tell everyone else what to do," she finished.

"Coming from the woman that lives with her sister, lives off her sister, really, but is bitching because the woman kept a secret from her?" He was his turn for moral superiority. "What difference would it have made if you'd known the entire time or not? Huh? Nothing. You're just mad because Mira didn't trust you."

"Mira trusts me with her life. With the life of her daughter. That's way more than-"

"Then why didn't she tell you?"

"Because she… I don't know. I don't." Lisanna took a breath. "I really don't."

In a mocking tone then, he retorted, "Maybe you should focus on that then, instead of other people's business, huh?"

Lisanna went back in before the man, but it was to find Tasha and Aura both missing from the kitchen. It didn't take long to find them though.

"She has really great musical talent," Tasha offered up over the incessant banging on the keys of the piano Aura did. She was seated beside her stepmother, mashing all the keys she could reach, repeatedly, with little intent other than to make as much noise as possible.

The piano was in the living room and Lisanna only went to take a seat on one of the couches.

"That's definitely one way of putting it," she sighed over the sounds of her niece's 'playing'.

Aura was very displeased to be taken back to the hotel that night by Lisanna and whined for her mother, who she did get to speak to over the lacrima. Mira was busy closing up though and didn't seem to want to talk to Lisanna at all, really, but the younger of the two sister's wasn't having it.

"Mira, wait, can we-"

"I have to go, Lisanna. I have to close up and then go home and eat-"

"You haven't eaten?"

"It was a busy day."

"You were doing inventory-"

"Well-"

"Just give me a second." Lisanna glanced down then, to where her niece had fallen asleep in her lap, listening to her sister's calming words of reassurance that yes, she would be home soon. She was just going to stay with Laxus for a few more days. That was all. Glancing back up at the lacrima before her, the younger woman took a bit of a breath before saying, "I just wanted to tell you… I don't know why you did it. Lied to me. I-"

"Lis-"

"But I know that no matter why it was...you did it for a reason. And that it wasn't easy for you. At any point. That nothing's ever been easy for you. I'm never going to happy you did it, but...I trust you and know that you'd never do something that would intentionally hurt me. At least not without a good reason. Especially when it clearly hurt you so much."

They had a moment then, though a brief one, where they both looked into their separate lacrimas and truly felt as if they were staring into one another's eyes. As harsh as that feeling was before, when Lisanna got  _that_ look, this felt so much more...like them.

There was no one that loved Lisanna more than her older sister. She knew that. Of course she did. Sometimes it was just easy to forget.

"We'll talk, Lisanna," Mira told her finally. "When you get back, we'll have another, serious talk. I promise. Because you're right. I never did any of this to make you upset with me. You know that."

She knew that.

She'd always known it.

She just couldn't help her anger, sometimes.

Things were much quieter that night at the Dreyar house. Laxus went to bed wtihout relaly saying much to his wife and he wasn't so sure she even glanced at him, even once. It was as they were finally both lying in bed though, together, that finally they did speak.

At least somewhat.

"I'll take them to the diner," he grumbled with his back to her, only loud enough for her to hear if she caught it. "Tasha. Tomorrow. For breakfast. And...maybe we can make lunch for them. Here. Aura seemed to like the soup, anyways."

His wife stayed silent though, just long enough to let what he said settle over them, before remarking, "I'm not doing this to punish you, Laxus. Any of this."

"Yeah," he yawned as he shut his eyes and decided to stop thinking about it all, at least for the night. "I know."


	13. Culminate

When he was a boy, he watched the dissolution of his parents' marriage through the eyes of misunderstanding and innocence. Had his mother snapped at him earlier in the day for, once more, being a devious little shit? Then that meant when his father bitched his poor mother out over the simplest of things that she deserved it. Did dear old dad yell at him about leaving his shoes in the middle of the floor like he always did, no matter how many times he was instructed not to? Then she didn't deserve it.

Things were that simple. Biased, really, is what they were. The situations were seen through the shades of someone who couldn't understand the deeper implications. He was old enough to recognize his parents' discontentment, but unable to grasp just what that meant. He got upset with them at times. Oh, he got upset. He got angry or sad or disappointed. But he always got over it. Because the love that he had for them, the two people that gave him life, outweighed any of the unhappiness he might feel towards them.

This sort of love didn't exist between the two of them. Or most people, honestly. The naive love of a child was typically absent passed adolescence. Anything that his parents might have had together, might have been able to sustain if they just cared enough to, was gone by the time he was five and continued to deteriorate at an overwhelming pace.

By the time his mother got ill, Ivan was so detached from reality that very little mattered anymore other than his one true goal; to conquer Fairy Tail. Or something. Whatever his deluded mind wanted, it seemed to know that it was impossible to accomplish with the baggage of a young sickly child and an equally as unwell woman. Unhappiness turned to resentment and, well, it was expected, really. When Ivan stopped coming home all together.

Maybe...maybe if his mother wasn't so sick, Laxus would have understood things a lot better. Had she lived, she would have been the one to raise him. To care for him. To help shape his opinion about things. But for so long, it just felt like he was raising himself, as she wasted away in bed. She'd send him out with whatever earnings Ivan had been kind enough to leave behind when he came home once a month, to buy food and necessities for the house, unable to do so on her own. He lived off sandwiches and the sweets she didn't realize he'd bought, mostly spending his days rereading his well worn comic books and playing around with his father's music lacrima. It wasn't until Makarov caught wind of this and the fact that his six year old grandson was living in such conditions that he stepped up and moved the boy in with him.

He remembered his mother being very upset, in her bedroom, as Makarov had Laxus pack a bag of all his toys and necessities. It made the boy upset, but his grandfather was telling him what to do and, like most children, he trusted the calm instructions of a man he so revered.

"You'll come back home," his grandfather assured him as they left, the man promising the boy's mother he would have someone from the guild come by in a few hours, as well as in the days coming, to help tend to her. "When your mother is well again."

Laxus only sniffled, but didn't cry because his grandfather wasn't crying and his father, Ivan, he never cried, ever, and he wanted to be like that too. Strong. They were both so accomplished, in their magic and their lives, from the eyes of such a young child. He wanted to be that one day. He would be that one day. He was sure of it.

He saw his mother a few more times, when he was taken over to visit, but she never seemed any better, the way that his grandfather kept promising she would. But Laxus held faith. Because that's all there was to have. His mother had to get better because that's what happened, when you were sick. You got better. Or at least that's what always happened for Laxus, all the times that he'd gotten sick over the years. Of course, for some reason you always got sick once more, but that just meant that you were gonna get better again.

That's just how it worked.

He couldn't remember, exactly, the last time he saw her. But he knew the first time he saw his father again, in a long time, was one day when everyone in the hall was really down and sad and kept giving him these long gazes. One of the women, a caster mage with dark orange hair that used to watch him sometimes, when his grandfather was too busy, kept hugging him and looked like she was tearful, but no one would tell him why.

Until his father showed up.

He wanted to run to his father, but the woman held him back, and Ivan didn't even look at him. Just went to speak with Makarov in the Master's back office for a few minutes before, eventually, returning. He grinned brightly, Laxus did, happy to have his father there once more, but Ivan only instructed him to take a walk with him.

It wasn't a pleasant one.

For the life of him though, no matter how many times he tried in the coming years, he couldn't recall what Ivan told him. Not a word of it. Just the hot tears as they welled in his eyes and coming back to the guild to finally understand. To finally get it. He didn't get it though, not really, what it meant. How it could be possible. That he'd never see his mother again.

But he at least knew that death, in all it's formality, was the hardest thing to come to terms with.

It was even worse too, as he grew. As he realized. As he tried to understand, to comprehend, as his innocence faded and wow, what the fuck was all that? His childhood? Had his parents been that terrible to one another? Had Makarov been terrible to his mother? Definitely to his father, right? That's probably why Ivan hated him. Laxus. Why he treated Laxus so terribly. Because of Makarov. And his mother…

She didn't choose to leave him, of course, but she had. A lot like Ivan. Two people who, in his mind, had been forced out of his life without either wishing for this to be the case.

It really fucked with his head a lot, when he was younger.

Especially when he was old enough to really think back and to realize all the fucked up things that his parents, especially his father, had brought into his life by their own volition.

That was part of the reason that he never planned to have kids. One of the many reasons, really. Or get married. Have serious romantic relationships. It really was true. Your young life did shape your entire future.

And yet there he was, both with a child and in a very serious marriage, feeling as if both were attempting to rip him apart.

Things only seemed to get worse, as days went on, and though Freed assured him, more than once, typically things did that right before they got better, he couldn't be fooled. Not again. He wasn't a child any longer. There was no innocence or misunderstanding to be had in this.

If he didn't work at it, if he didn't give it his all, he might lose Tasha.

And since Tasha had made it very clear that what was important in this entire situation was him getting his daughter integrated into their lives, that should have solved that.

If only.

Things were more complicated, of course, when you stopped just looking at them all stripped down. Because people were more complicated. Especially Tasha, he was finding out. She was saying so many things, so many things that led him in one direction and yet…

Sometimes he had to wonder if it was even what he wanted. What she wanted. Was he doing all of this, getting back involved with the Strausses, just because of Tasha? Or because he wanted to? Was it even better for Aura, what was going on right now, or had she been better off before he got involved.

He couldn't think on that though. At least not give it his full attention. What was done was done. He'd told Tasha and there was nothing he could do about it. It was what it was. Going forwards, he had to think about calming the storm. That was all. And stop shocking the ground so much.

So he saw Aura. When he could. Which, according to Tasha, was at least once every time he came home from a job and before he left on one. The little girl seemed to fall into something of a schedule with this. Though she didn't know when he'd appear, she knew that when he did, she would be welcomed with a small gift and a chance to eat wherever she wanted.

More often that not, it was to one place.

"You're gonna make her fat," Mira complained more than once when she heard about their excursions at the ice cream shop.

"I'm making," he complained right back, "her happy."

And he was. In a way. If she were a little older, it might be a bit more difficult to find favor in her eyes, as she might be a bit more weary. Or if Mira dated more, probably. Laxus realized, rather early on, that he felt more like a step parent than an actual one. But Mira didn't seem to bring many men around her daughter who would attempt to sway her love, if any at all. So it was fresh to Aura, the introduction of a man, leaving her to be far more susceptible.

It felt so creepy though, when he thought of it in that way. As if he were trying to trick the kid or something. He wasn't. Was he? Maybe. Kind of. He'd never wanted to go through all of this, anyways. With her. Even before Tasha he never saw himself as the type of guy to go around, buying toys and trinkets for a little brat. Shelling out jewels on ice cream sundaes as big as their heads. It wasn't in him. It just wasn't. He wasn't so sure, even if Tasha were to have a kid, that he'd be too overly involved with that one. Not so young, anyways.

It just wasn't his thing.

Not to mention...he wasn't a guy who was trying to woo her mother. At all. Seriously. In any way. In his new ideal way this all panned out, he and Mirajane would have hardly anything to do with one another. At all. She didn't seem to want to see him much either, after all. They did, of course, when he came to see the kid, but Mira would usually excuse herself and, as Aura only became more comfortable with her father, this became far easier. He began taking her places without her mother or aunt and that limited even further the amount of interaction that her parents were forced to adhere.

The less they could interact, the better.

Mira had her own things to figure out, anyways, at first. Lisanna and Aura arriving back from their stay with the slayer gave a head to the previous stalemate the sisters had going into it. After Aura was put to bed that first night, they both sat at the kitchen table where they had it out with one another.

It wasn't pretty.

There was a lot of whispered hisses and a few heated words, but when it was over, Lisanna just cried about how she felt betrayed and lied to and how it made her feel powerless again, like a little kid, who had things kept from her by her older siblings, and Mira only hugged her as she promised to never do it again. No matter what. Regardless of what ever came, she'd never hide it from her sister.

That, on Mira's end, stopped a lot of the tension that she felt. No matter what pain Laxus' re-entrance might cause in their world, it didn't matter. When the Strauss siblings were all on the same page, supporting one another, there was hardly anything that could shake them.

But even with her siblings both at the hall that day, Mirajane wasn't ready for what happened. Not by a long shot.

Aura had been given off to Lucy for the day, who was taking her and Happy down to the market to help her decide on some new clothes. They balanced one another out, after all. Aura thought she looked great in anything and Happy had a sharp tongue about the exactly same ones. That freed up her siblings, anyways, from babysitting duty, and they responded by doing the same stupid things they usually killed time doing; Lisanna egged Natsu on in his tempting of Gray towards a fight while Elfman and Evergreen sat beside one another at a table, though in vain, as they seemed to mostly spend the day griping about the other.

Mirajane worked as usual with Kinana behind the bar. It was truly a bit of a slow day. Half the guild was out on jobs and the other half just seemed to have other things to do, so she wasn't counting too highly on her tips reflecting anything close to her daily toil. This would become more apparent when, as she stood behind the bear, giggling with Kinana about something or other, a visitor walked through the doors.

Mirajane knew every single person in the guild. Everyone. Though their numbers had grown exponentially over the years, she prided herself on never forgetting a face. Each one was burned into her memory. Though some hardly took jobs and others were gone on them so often you hardly saw them, she considered them all equal members of something greater than them all. Membership ebbed and flowed, should a disaster strike, they might even fall back down to their core, but regardless, they were still all fairies. And fairies recognized one another anywhere.

Which is why Mirajane knew that the woman who came through the doors was not a fairy. She looked wildly out of place and only took to glancing about, as if trying to place someone, anyone, that she recognized.

The first person she locked eyes with only widened her own as she hunkered down into her chair, whispering softly to her boyfriend, "This ought to be good."

"What do you mean?" Elfman complained, glancing up from the job flier he'd just snagged, planning to read it over and glance at a map, as to plan it out a bit before deciding if he wanted it or not. "Evergreen?"

But she wouldn't say. No. She couldn't risk missing a single beat. With Freed and Bickslow both out, it was her job, after all, to be the eyes and ears of this upcoming development.

Lisanna rose though, from the table she was at with Natsu and Gray, but seemed frozen and unsure if she should intervine on what was clearly about to occur. Just as she was finding her voice and something of a warning was creeping up he throat, Mirajane was speaking to the other woman with a bright smile and a bit of a giggle.

"Hi," she welcomed with a slight wave as the woman approached the bar. "Welcome to Fairy Tail. Our Master is out right now, but I can help you, I'm sure, with most anything you might need."

She was being placed then, the newcomer was, to a few of those around, but Mirajane, who'd never met Laxus' wife, had nowhere to place her from. Only still stood there. With a dumb smile.

Lisanna might have felt some kind of vengeance, given the thing her sister was about to be blindsided with, were she a less empathetic person. Or even just the one she'd been kidding herself she was. She wasn't vengeful. Not in the slightest.

"I," Tasha started, staring at Mirajane with curious eyes, "am actually looking for someone."

"Oh, well, I dunno who all's around, but if you just tell me-"

"I think it's you."

Evergreen bit down on a knuckle she shoved into her mouth, hard enough to draw a little sliver of blood. She was truly living. Truly. If someone could also add Erza to the mix and somehow embarrass her, she might keel right on over.

Mira wasn't as slow on the uptake as she always portrayed though. No, not by a long shot. It was becoming increasingly clear what was going on and, as her facade dropped a bit, she only deflated some before saying, "Then I guess you've found me."

They weren't dramatic people though, Tasha and Mirajane weren't. And honestly, any animosity between them was more hyped up than anything else. They only stared at one another for a long few months before, with a bow of her head, Tasha mentioned wishing to speak with Mirajane, privately, and Kinana was quick to say she could more than watch the bar alone. Not to mention Lisanna was around.

"Take," Kinana suggested slowly, "your lunch break."

Which Mirajane usually skipped through anyways, but now it had been put out there, Tasha seem receptive to the idea and, well, it wouldn't hurt.

It was awkward though, walking together and not speaking. Neither seemed too comfortable in their own skin then which Mirajane considered odd, seeing how Tasha had been the one to seek her out. But, she kept reminding herself, Tasha was nothing more than an innocent bystander in the mess that Laxus and she (mostly her, fine) had created. If she had something to say about the whole thing, she had a right to.

They stopped at the first cafe they came across, taking a seat outside. The sun was bright in the sky and Mira hoped that wherever Lucy had taken her daughter and the Exceed, they stayed there. So long as it was far from where she was currently.

"So," Mira began slowly after an awkward few moments following the waitress pouring their tea, "was there something specific you wished to talk about?"

But Tasha wasn't looking at her then, instead passed her. With a shake of her head, she only said, "Laxus would be so upset, if he knew… But he's out on a job, right now."

"Evergreen will tell him," Mira told her simply with a bit of a shrug. "She was at the hall. She saw you. He'll know soon enough."

"I wouldn't keep it from him, anyways."

"Anyways," Mira hummed and it was just all so gauche. "Evergreen is a bit...difficult, honestly, so I'm sure she'll spin the story far different then-"

"I suppose you're angry at me."

Brows furrowing, Mirajane only asked, "Why would you suppose that?"

"I'm the one making Laxus do all of this," Tasha pointed out. "You know."

"What do you mean? He came to me before he even told you about-"

"Yeah, but I'm the one that told him he had to go back and… Never mind. It doesn't matter, I guess."

"N-No, what-"

"I built this all up in my mind," Tasha confessed as, finally, her eyes found Mira's bright blues, "that you would be some kind of terrible woman, or that you were doing all of this just to ruin my… But you're not. I know that you're not. But you did lie to my husband."

"I… I know I did," Mira agreed then with a swallow. "I did that. And it was wrong. I know."

Nodding, Tasha said, "Laxus isn't going away. We're not going away."

"I know."

"Then-"

"But I'm not going to let my daughter get hurt, either, just so the two of you can prove a point. Either one of you," Mira cut her off. "Laxus can do as he pleases, but if he intends to start something, it's just as I told him; he better see it through. I know that you are with child, but-"

"You think that I'm what?"

"It's what Freed and the others said," Mira told her with a nod. "It's fine. It's none of my business. But if he thinks that he can just pretend to be a father, now, to Aura, and then later ditch her when-"

"I," Tasha had her turn at interrupting, "am not...with child."

Mira's next cutting remark caught in her throat and she only blinked before, softly, remarking, "Oh."

"Yeah."

"I only thought-"

"We were discussing it. Which triggered him to start all of this...this." Tasha let out a long breath then before shrugging. "Now I'm not so certain of what we'll do. And I don't know why I'm telling you this anyways, but-"

"It's okay," Mira was quick to say because, hey, once the gossip got twice removed from yourself, it was actually rather interesting. "I don't wish ill on you or Laxus. At all. I can't...care about him anymore, I guess, outside of the fact that he's.. But I still want what's best for him. We were...friends, once. For a very short period of time."

"Long enough," Tasha retorted and Mira could only nod with a grin and it felt like so long ago, but was it truly? That she wished to be in the same bout as the other woman now?

"Long," the barmaid agreed, "enough."

Still, Tasha took to dropping a sugar cube from the center of the table into her tea before stirring it carefully, looking all about them then. "Magnolia isn't half bad to look at. I don't know why Laxus always seems so adverse to it."

"I think he just likes to be far away from his grandfather," Mirajane admitted with a bit of a grin at the thought. "The two of them are usually on better terms, the further away from one another they are."

"He's a nice man."

"Well, I dunno if I'd call Laxus nice, really, but-"

"I meant Makarov."

"Oh Master?" Mirajane laughed then, finally on a topic she could talk for hours on without feeling the least bit self-conscious. "He really is something."

"Laxus told me that you were quite taken with him."

"I- He what?"

"Are you not?"

"Well," she thought aloud, "I do like Master a bunch, if that's what he meant. Master Makarov is a lot like all of our grandfather. Not just Laxus'. I'd never had that before. Not even a father figure, when I came here. Makarov has saved so many of us that, I'm sure, if you asked around, you'd get the same sentiment. It's just different, I guess, when he is actually your grandfather."

"Maybe," Tasha agreed and they lapsed into silence for a long few moments.

"Why'd you really ask me here?" Mira questioned. "What did you want?"

"Confirmation, I guess."

"About?"

"You and Laxus… Do you still have feelings for my husband?"

"No," Mira answered and she didn't waiver in the slightest. "It's like I told you; he's just Aura's father now, to me."

"But only because-"

"Laxus and I wouldn't have… I did like Laxus, fine, yes." Mira felt sick, even rehashing those words. "There's nothing wrong with him. And we got along well. At the time I thought maybe… But I stepped aside because I knew that he was much happier. Than he deserved to be happier. With whoever he chose. I didn't need to muddy his mind with nonsense. He's a smart man, but he's not very… You would know, better than me, I'm sure."

"No," she whispered in response. "I don't. What are you talking about?"

"Laxus isn't...loving. Or receptive," Mira went on. "Towards other. Especially women. If you've broken thoruhg that, then, good for the both of you. I'm glad. He was in so much pain, his whole life. I don't like the idea of any of my guild mates, my friends, former or current, to go through such things. He had a sad childhood and his teenage years were pretty bad, but if you guys are together and he's happy, truly happy, then that's all I want. Really. For him. But," she added, because there was always one of those, "my daughter comes first. In everything. I'm not asking that she does for him. Or for you. If you two have a child of your own, eventually, if that's what you decide, then, by all means, and I'm sure that child will mean much more to him than… But her best interest is always forefront for me. Over everything. Laxus' is fickle and moody. If my daughter falls out of favor with him, or he stops treating her correctly, then I'll make sure that he never sees her again."

"We clearly," Tasha said after a poignant beat, "know Laxus in very different capacities."

"Do you think?"

"Laxus would never… He does care about his daughter. I don't know what Freed and whoever told you about… But he's not going to abandon her. He-"

"He knew about her," Mira pointed out. "Did he tell you that?"

"Yes."

"Then-"

"But you-"

"If Laxus wanted her," she said simply, "Aura has been in the same place all along. He didn't. And you know that. I'll admit my part, but you should both admit his. I understand why he… But I'm not going to pretend like he didn't. I don't blame you for anything though. For feeling how you feel. We don't have to be friends, you know, and I don't think we ever will be. But-"

"You keep citing to me," Tasha pointed out then, "all these rules and long monologues and I've let you, but… I don't want to fight with you either. Mirajane. I don't know you. Laxus isn't going to go away, just like I told you, and yes, I understand that you feel protective of your daughter, but you're not the only one who gets to make decisions for her. Not anymore. Laxus has just as much right to her as he always did. No matter when he decided to exercise that right. All the power doesn't lie with you."

"And yet," Mira retorted, feeling a bit defensive then, "none of it lies with you."

"Laxus and I are one."

"Are you?"

"So it does bother you then, doesn't it?"

Mira's eyes followed the waitress as she came over then, their plates in hand, and said simply, "He's your husband, not mine. But he'll always be the father of my child. What happens with Aura is between him and me."

"Anything that happens," Tasha told her simply, "to Laxus, involves me. Any decision he makes."

Mira was silent as the waitress sat their plates down, waiting until the pair were alone again to reply, "Which is why he even wants to see my daughter, right? Isn't that what you said earlier?"

"Huh?"

"You're the only reason he's in all this. Right?"

"I only told Laxus that if he wanted to have a child with me," Tasha began with a bit of a frown, "that if he wanted to have a child with me, then I wished for him to have a relationship with the other one he had. That's all."

But that wasn't all. Sure, it was the entirety of the story, but the deeper implications underneath it sat uncomfortably on the surface.

"Besides," Tasha went on as Mira, ever great at hiding her expression, looked on silently, "I guess it's like you said before. We're not going to be friends. You and I. It's impossible."

"I agree."

"And I'm not looking to...parent your daughter or anything like that-"

"I'm glad."

"-but if Laxus and I are going to continue our…" She seemed to be questioning herself then and, for a moment, only stared down at her sandwich. Perfectly cut into neat triangles. Simple. Clean. Nice. "I don't know what I wanted from you, today, Mirajane. I don't. And I don't think that I found it, really, but-"

"I think you did." Mira hardly took notice of her sandwich as she, without glancing down, picked up one half of it to take a bite. "I dunno what it was, but I'm sure you'll see it easier than me, anyways."

Laxus' revelation about Aura had more than prepared Mirajane for the judgmental stares she would get that day, when she arrived back at the hall. It had been far worse, back then, anyways. The stares she got that day paled in comparison and, now losing out even more jewels form tips considering she'd taken such a long lunch, Mira only put on her brightest smile and best attitude, waving off the concerns of her siblings.

"We'll talk after work," she told Lisanna simply and, well, she couldn't quite argue with that one.

Things felt calm for Mirajane though. Or at least they seemed that way. Tasha didn't show her face again and, honestly, Mirajane didn't expect she'd see her again. Possibly ever. There would be no need. They'd had their big showdown and, though it was more of a letdown than anything else, to those who were hoping for more, both women had said their peace. If there'd ever truly been a need for that in the first place.

"I don't have an issue with Tasha," Mirajane assured Lucy and Cana when they spoke on it later that week, in her kitchen, while Aura napped. "Why should I?"

"Well," Cana said around her wine glass, "I wouldn't be making nice with her. If I were you."

"Why not?" Lucy had summed Plue and only snuggled him close to her chest. "I don't see anything wrong with it. If you're all going to be adults about this and all be in Aura's life, then this is kind of necessary, isn't it? So you were into Laxus. Who cares? He's married now and you're not, right? It's kind of silly, the way people get so caught up about those kinds of things. If I eve rmet a man and he had a kid, I'd hate to think that I was a bitch about it."

"No offense to you, Mira, or Laxus, I guess," Cana remarked simply, "but I got a strict no kid policy. Weeds out the field just enough."

"Yeah, well, I don't think that many guys want their kids around you anyways," Lucy replied simply as the drunkard only waved her off.

Mirajane sighed though, shaking her head some after she downed some of her glass before saying simply, "I just feel like Tasha wanted something more out of meeting. To hate me or something. Or maybe it was me that wanted that. One or the other. But it was just so...worthless. All of it. There was no need to it. Look; nothing's changed."

"You don't know that," Cana warned simply and, well, yeah, she didn't, but what was the worst that could happen?

She would find out, anyways, Mirajane would, one day when she was off and with Aura at home. It fell eerily similar, the loud banging on the front door and the way she could just sense him. Looming. Laxus. She knew he'd come back to town, as she'd gotten the flier that he'd completed his job, but he hadn't actually stuck aruond in Magnolia long. Didn't even see Aura. Just went straight home.

Mirajane figured Freed or Evergreen or Bickslow had already tipped him off about the whole meeting thing and he wanted to see his wife first. Mira didn't hold that against him. With that done, he'd come back then, yes? To see Aura? Still, the feeling in the pit of her stomach was heavy as she went to answer the door and she couldn't quite place why.

When she opened the door to reveal him though, the slayer only stood there dark and glowering as he growled at Mirajane, "What the fuck did you say to my wife?"

"Laxus, I don't- What are you talk-"

"Tasha," he growled as he only glared at her confusion, "left me."


	14. Cascade

"W-What?" Mirajane took a few steps back, unintentionally allowing the slayer entrance in her shock. Not that she would have kept him out anyways. No. Not this time. "Laxus, what are you talking about? I didn't say anything. I-"

"The fuck you didn't." Following his exclamation, Laxus stomped right in, a dark look about him. "She told me, Mira. About your stupid little conversation. You think your so slick, don't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"The fuck you don't."

"If you don't knock it off-"

"What? Huh? You already ruined my marriage. Threw a surprise baby at me. What else could you possibly-"

"Get out."

But he didn't move to and Mira was missing it. The aggression. Because she didn't feel it. Though she wasn't taking too kindly to the tone the man was using, nor the attitude he was throwing her way, she actually thought that they were in a good place. The two of them. Three of them, even, including his wife. Clearly, there had been some crossed wires somewhere along the way, but Mirajane was certain it wasn't on her end.

"Tell me," he repeated them, harshly, "what you and my wife-"

"Laxus! Hi."

Neither Mirajane nor the man turned to look as, from the hall, Aura came rushing out. She'd been very busy, organizing her blocks (not stacking, organizing; colors were her new favorite discovery), but at the sound of the man's growls, she came to see him. With an outstretched hand, she was certain there would be some kind of present, even if it were just a piece of candy, and she couldn't wait for it.

"We're not going to talk about this in front of her," Mira told the man simply as, when their daughter came to stop at their feet, he didn't even acknowledge her. Pulling the child to her, Mira hardened her tone to the same level as his as she added, "I mean it, Laxus."

"Then get," he retorted, "rid of her."

And it sounded so callous and wrong, even for him, even at his worst, and the look that Mirajane gave him then was about the same as the one that Tasha gave him only a few hours before. When it all went down.

He'd known that things wouldn't be good for him, before he arrived. Or at least he figured. Evergreen had contacted him and given him what information she could, but he knew it had to be traced with her typical dramatics. Even still, she didn't make things sound too horrible. Mira and Tasha spoke, nothing more had happened. At all.

If anything, Evergreen sounded a bit disappointed through the lacrima.

But he could tell, as he entered the house, that something was wrong. Laxus had forgone visiting his daughter and headed instead straight for his wife, unable to stomach waiting another moment. She wasn't working on anything when he came in, wasn't busy. Just sitting there, at the piano in the living room. Not even messing around on it. Playing something. Just sitting, one hand poised lazily over the keys, silent as he came in.

She didn't rise to greet him or say anything and he knew, he fucking knew, that it wasn't good. Whatever had gone on. What was about to go on.

"Hey." He dropped his bag to the ground as he stood behind her then, just staring heavily at the back of his wife's head. Silently, he begged her to turn around. To look at him. She wouldn't. Just sat there. "Tasha. Are you not even gonna-"

"I spoke with her. Mirajane."

His mouth felt dry and Laxus wondered if he should just walk on then, passed her and into the kitchen. To get a glass of water. Would the problems this cause be worth it? Over choking to death?

"Yeah," he got out though, over his scratchy tongue. "I know."

She nodded some then, his wife did, and it wasn't purposeful, but one of her fingers pressed down on a key the deadened note hung over them for a good few moments before, taking another step forwards, he sucked in a breath and tried to think of something, anything, to say. He'd had a whole train ride to figure it out, but had spent most of it convincing himself that he'd get home and it wouldn't even be a big deal. That he'd worked himself up over nothing. That Mirajane and Tasha, two very mature, sensible women had had a much needed conversation and now they could just move on. Now they could get on. With their lives.

Whatever that meant.

He just wanted to get on with his fucking life already.

"What did you guys talk about?

"Laxus." Now she just sounded annoyed. Still, she didn't look at him and the man refused to step in front of her. Force this to happen. No. He wanted her to choose to do so. To see him. "Honestly."

"Honestly," he repeated back, taking it as a question.

That time it was a head shake and, while doing it, she said, "I just… Everything felt so good and simple. Before. And now it's all muddled and I just can't stop thinking about-"

"I should have never started all of this. At all." He clenched his fists at the thought. "I wish I-"

"Don't say that."

"It's true. If I could go back, I would have just...ate it." Laxus didn't like the taste though, of the words. "I wouldn't have done it. Go to Magnolia. Started all of this. I would have just stayed feeling like shit, until it went away."

"Is that how you get through the rest of your life?"

"What?"

Finally, her hand fell from the keys and Tasha turned to face him. She wasn't, like, a sobbing mess or anything. She didn't look too broken up at all. Though, it wasn't as if she'd been planning on him showing up at that exact moment. No. He'd caught her with her mind wandering, apparently, and he could blame that for the conversation, that for the nowhere it seemed to be going, that for why she was so cold and distant and is this how he was? When he got like that? Was that what she was doing? Returning the favor?

"Mira told me," Tasha was going on then, "something. About you. About how you are. I didn't believe her. I don't believe her."

"You shouldn't." He meant it. "Tasha… Mira's nice and everything, but she's got a...darkness in her. Over certain things. And if she said something about me, about this whole thing, then it's probably just because she doesn't want-"

"What do you want, Laxus?"

"What do you mean?" He had no more steps to take then and reached out instead, his hand, to try and pat at her head or her cheek or something other than the air that this was met with. "I want you. I want this. I want us."

But she didn't smile. Didn't reward him for his bravery. Because it was brave. Laxus felt. He was just talking to his wife, his other half, the person that he was supposed to keep nothing from, be completely open with, but man, that was so fucking hard sometimes and, recently? It felt like being real, being honest, being open just kept leading to bad shit. To the wrong things. To him only getting shit on for trying to do the right.

Life was so much simpler when he just sucked up all those feelings, all those concerns, when he walked through the guildhall doors and saw Mirajane there, holding their daughter. If he'd just continued to hold those down, suppress, suppress, suppress, then, maybe, by now, he'd be a father. A real father. To a kid he wanted, actually cared about, with someone that he really did love, and fuck Mirajane for fucking up his life like this and fuck Tasha too for making him have to go through with this, for holding his feet to the fire, and fuck…

Fuck.

"But," she was asking then, his wife, and Laxus couldn't look away from her gaze, not for one second, "what about your daughter?"

"What about her?"

"If we… When we have a baby, then..what happens with her?"

"What are you talking about? What did Mira tell you?" His jaw was set then. "I want to have a kid with you. We talked about that. Mira has nothing to do with that. And neither does her daughter. I just had to… I had to get everything situated with them first. And I have, haven't I? We both have, right? Everything is fine. As good as it's going to get. I don't get why you had to go and talk to her, but-"

"Because, Laxus, she has a baby with my husband. You really don't understand why I need to talk to her?"

"No. I don't. I-"

"I had to see if she was still… I don't, Laxus, I had to see if she was, like, still into you or-"

"And she's not."

Tasha nodded at that. "Yeah, I know."

"Then what's the problem?"

For a moment, he got no answer and they were both just there, in their own home, feeling completely out of place and uncomfortable.

"I know that you're just doing all of this, because I told you to. Being involved with them and your daughter and… If I told you stop, that this is too much for me then-"

"I didn't want her. Aura. I didn't want this. Any of it." Honesty didn't feel freeing at all. It felt just as constrictive. Things that he only thought to himself, distantly, even, in some cases, just laid out. In front of the only person he should be able to trust with all of them. "I only ever had a kid with Mira because she was so… We were friends. Kind of. And it was fun, I guess, to think about. When I didn't think about these things that much. But now I think about them all the time and how flawed and dumb and… If I could just make it all disappear, I would. It was a mistake. And I made it worse by telling you about it. I just wish that I could get rid of- Where are you going? Tasha-"

"I can't do this, Laxus. I can't. I-"

"I'm telling you that we don't have to. Okay? Mira won't… She won't force this. If we just walk away right now, if ewe just end this, with her and… Aura's fine. Without me. She always was. I should have just let things stay how they were. Then we wouldn't be all fucked up about it and- Stop walking away from me. Tasha-"

"You would leave her, wouldn't you? Laxus? If if I wasn't asking you to."

She stopped, in the doorway to the staircase. She was no doubt fleeing to her bedroom before his words caught her. As she stopped to question, Laxus only stood where he had been before, over by the piano, just glaring at her now.

"I'm only doing any of this because you asked me to! You want me to, so I'm doing it. But now that I'm doing what you've asked me to, I'm still getting snapped at for it? It doesn't make any sense, Tasha. What do you want?"

"I don't want to be the person making you do the right thing, Laxus. I don't want you to have to be forced into doing things. Your friends and...Mira all know some sort of different person than me and I don't want to meet you, Laxus. Whatever it is that you are to them. I don't want to have a baby with someone that one day will just be another person. It's not enough to just be different with me; you have to be better over all. I can't...I can't be with you, if you're not who I thought you were."

There was other stuff. Arguing. Things. But eventually she left and Laxus sulked for a long while. Drank. Tried to figure out what the fuck she was talking about. But there was only one person who could tell him what she was so stuck up on.

And she was just as horrified by him, in that moment, as his wife had been, before.

Still, Mirajane took Aura next door, for an impromptu play date with the little boy over there, while Laxus stewed in the kitchen, tapping his fingers against the old table as he snarled to himself.

"What the fuck is your problem?"

He knew Mirajane would come in hot, but her anger in that moment was unmatched as, upon returning, she came to stand before him with her hand son his hips and a deadly glare in her eyes.

"This is the exact reason," Mira went on as she raised one of her hands to shake a finger, as to punctuate her words, "that I never wanted you or your wife to get involved with-"

"What," Laxus cut her off with a glare, "did you say to my wife? I'm serious, Mirajane, what? Huh?"

"Nothing! We talked about, well, us, I guess, all of us, but it was fine. She told me that she wanted to be involved with Aura and so did you and I told her that..."

"You told her," Laxus repeated heavily, still seated there, at the woman's kitchen table, "what? Mirajane?"

"Just that I don't want you around, Laxus, if it's going to be- Like this. Like how things are right now. You were just extremely rude to Aura, who only wanted to speak with you, because you're what? Fighting with your wife? That's your life, over there. Not ours. And I don't want it bleeding into this."

But he just shook his head. "That's not all you said. There's no fucking way that that-"

"I just told her that you're probably going to ditch us, eventually. Aura. And me, I guess. That you guys are going to have your own kid and then-"

"Why would you say that to her? Huh? Mira? Where do you even get off? Like you know shit about me? You don't. You-"

"I know that you knew for years, Laxus, that you had a kid, and only wanted her when you and your wife decided that you wanted to have a kid. That's right, isn't it? What started all of this? You felt guilty and wanted to make things right. Well, you haven't. And coming here, yelling and screaming at me about  _your_  wife coming to talk to me, coming into my job and forcing me to go on break, just to speak with her, like she's somehow got a say in my life? She doesn't, Laxus, and neither do you."

"Not everything is about you."

"But it is you?"

"All I ever tried to do was the right thing," he insisted then, but ift felt less like he was talking to Mirajane and more someone else. "This whole time. And all it's done is bite me in the ass. Why do the right thing if-"

"You think," Mira cut him off and she might have even laughed, just a bit, as she folded her arms over her chest, "you did the right thing?"

"Yeah, Mira, I think coming clean about having a kid was the right thing. Just because you're so bothered by it doesn't make it not one."

"I'm bothered by it?"

"You clearly are."

"You and your wife are the ones that are bothered by it. I don't care, Laxus. Tell the entire world. I kept it a secret to protect you and your relationship. You decided to test that. Not me. If it's blowing up in your face now, if anything, you should be thanking me for trying to save this-"

"You cannot be serious."

Well, not wholly. Still, Mira shrugged some as she looked off. "I don't understand what I have to do with this, Laxus. If you and your wife are having problems, she's the one that you need to talk to. Not me."

"You're the problem."

"How?"

"Your daughter," he clarified and her arms dropped then some, defeated, or perhaps just finished.

"Our," she reminded as, slowly, she moved to take a seat with him, at the table, "daughter."

Staring across it at her, his hand took to tapping against the old wood again before the man asked, "Why did you tell her that I was going to abandon Aura?"

Mira didn't sound angry, now, as it fled and left her with something of sympathy. Maybe. Empathy? Still, she only questioned back, "Aren't you?"

"I started all of this. Mira. Me. Why does everyone act like that doesn't matter? I came to you. I said that I wanted to be in her life. Me." It didn't sound right though, then, and his eyes fell some, fingers stilling against the wood now, as he thought. "Tasha's the one that told me I had to...be so involved. I just wanted to...get it out there. So you'd know I know and that Aura, if she ever… Just so she would know. I didn't...want all of this. Mira. I'm sorry."

But she didn't sound surprised. Only whispered back to him, "I know. That's how you are, Laxus. Distant. To everyone. I've said from the beginning that I don't want you to start something that you won't finish. And this is going to be one of those things, isn't it?"

"Tasha told me," he continued on, rather than answering, "that if I just got involved, if I did everything she said, then… But I did that. I did it. Why is she still so pissed at me? I did everything she said. Everything she wanted. And she's still leaving me."

"I mean," Mira began slowly, softly, "you kind of hid a baby from her. She probably thought she could deal with it, but can't. It was a pretty big burden to-"

"You hid-"

"Don't start that argument again. You knew and still hid it, Laxus. Because you knew as well as I did that it was better. The way it was before."

It was a grim nod, but one all the same as, finally, they were in agreement. "I wish I never did it."

"I wish I never opened the door," Mira agreed, but that time, his head shake was in the negative.

"Had a baby with you," he corrected, lifting his eyes to meet hers again. "That's what fucked everything up."

Her face changed then, but it wasn't to one of anger. Not contempt. Something else. Something Laxus couldn't properly place. And, as Mira sat taller in her chair, he knew, once more, honesty had fucked him over.

"Do you want your wife back? Laxus?"

He nodded a bit dumbly as the woman stared him dead in the eyes.

"Then go get her." Mira's tone wasn't welcoming, but her words were what he needed regardless. "Is she at home? Or has she left?"

"Left."

"Then go to her family. Or friends. Somewhere. She's out there. Go back to her. When women leave, they want you to chase after them. They want you to go get them and-"

"Nothing's changed. I should give her time. Time. And then-"

"Go to her," Mira kept right up, "and tell her that you are going to leave Fairy Tail."

And his face fell.

"Mirajane-"

"Tell her you're going to leave this area. And you're both going to go far away from here," she kept right up. "That you can't stay here and be together. And you will leave everything you want, everything you care about, behind. For her. And ask her to do the same for you."

"This whole thing," he complained right back, "started because I ran away. From all of this. And now, you're telling me to run again? That doesn't make-"

But Mirajane didn't want to hear his complaints, it seemed. Instead, she only continued on, hardly even hearing him.

"Tell her that Aura is safe. And fine. And has more family than she knows what to do with. And when she thinks of her father, when she needs her father, she will have three of his closest, most trusted friends there to tell her all about him. That his grandfather, for as long as he will be here, will treasure her. Aura doesn't need you, Laxus, and she doesn't need your wife. But you need her. Tasha. Don't you? I've never seen you happier. No one has. So go be happy again." Swallowing, Mirajane looked off as she said, "When you came back...from when you first met her, I… I knew. Obviously. And I kept it from you. Because you looked so...much like someone new. Someone who wasn't pessimistic and putting on, just to keep peace in the guild. I don't believe in soul mates or any of that. I don't. But I think that you're probably better with her than anyone else. So go be with her.

"It'll be hard. She'll probably yell at you and scream at you, but don't give in, Laxus, to the way that you usually are. The way you are with all the rest of us. You're not a bad person. And it doesn't make you one to leave. But it will make you one, to ruin things with your wife and try and force something you don't want with Aura. To make her miserable, the way your dad made you miserable, to hang around when you're not wanted or to come and go and…

"If you leave, go. When you go. Really go and never come back. Go restart. Really. With...Tasha. Have the kid you want. The one that will make you happy and fill you with the same joy Aura does for me. People build up these stupid ideals that...when you make a mistake, you have to keep compounding it. To make yourself miserable for it. But I don't think so. I'm not going to keep making myself feel horrible over all of this. And I don't want you to either. Or for Aura to carry this horrible weight around, for the rest of forever, that because of her, your life was ruined. That's not fair. I never want her to feel that way. And I know that, deep down, you don't either. Maybe you don't want Aura, but I do. And I'm so thankful that I had her. So thank you, Laxus. For everything. But you're forgiven. I don't hate you. And we'll all make sure Aura doesn't either. Now go live your life."

He didn't want to. Yet. There felt like there was so much more to say. And it wasn't really like standing up would be any sort of affirmative, no going back, defining moment. There was a lot more that went into things than Mirajane's words. A woman he hardly knew now. And honestly? Probably didn't know too well back when it felt like they knew so much about one another, so fast. Mirajane had been the one to put it in his head, originally, that he needed someone. A woman. To set him straight and open up his world. If anything, she was the steps to the stage of his first real, serious relationship with the woman he was now hopelessly in love with.

As he got to his feet, there was a tightness that hung about in his chest and when Mirajane didn't move to see him to the door, he knew he just got the most of a goodbye he would from the woman.

The train ride home felt odd and he just kept replaying so many different things in his head as he tried to keep down his lunch. It just couldn't make sense to him, and it never would, why it was such a bad thing? That he was different? For her? His wife? Was he not supposed to be?

Why couldn't she just accept that it would be different? Between the two of them? When they had a child? That things already were different people them? And it wasn't like he didn't like Aura. Or that he didn't feel bad for her. Thought that situation sucked. Was horrible. But…

Mira was right.

About very few things, but about this, one hundred percent. He fought her on it for the benegit of his wife, but he didn't particularly disagree with her.

He probably wasn't going to hang around long. With Aura. He was currently because he was told to. By Tasha. Maybe he'd get attached or comfortable with that, as time went on, but if he didn't and Aura did...if Aura thought that he was someone who was going to be there, after each and every job, taking her out and spending time with her, while he just...wasn't, then…

Because eventually, this wouldn't be as big of a deal. He knew that. Tasha was all broken up over the idea of him not caring about or loving his blood, but once he showed her how much he could and would love a child that they had, together, and how that would be different, then it would all blow away.

He was different. Laxus was. With her. And he would be different. With their child. A family that he was actually happy about. Rather than being forced into. Didn't want.

And Mira was right about that too. Aura shouldn't feel like baggage. Ivan did a lot of fucked up things to him, when he was growing up, but one of the worsts was making him think he loved him. That he cared about him. Coming in and out of his life and poisoning his mind.

Laxus didn't plan on abandoning her. Not completely. He'd still send cards and jewels, if Mira needed them. Presents for birthdays. Holidays. And when eh came back to Magnolia, to see Gramps or his friends, then maybe…

But it was never supposed to be the way Tasha wanted so badly for it to be. No. Never. Mirajane and he had both decided that he wouldn't be involved until the kid got older. When it would actually need help with the things that he was excited over the possibility of. Training and all that.

He could still do that. One day. When Aura was old enough, if she wanted him to help her with magic or to mentor her, then he would. Honest. All she had to do was ask.

It wasn't like he was leaving her behind in an orphanage or something. No. He'd popped into the perfect little life she had, with her mother and aunt and uncle, and, if anything, now he gave her a Gramps and the Thunder Legion and...and…

Sometimes it was just better. To end things. Especially before they begin. It was easier that way.

And hey, if he ever did have a kid, that he cared for a whole bunch, then it wasn't like he was cutting Aura out completely. If he remembered cards and gifts and...if they ever met, there shouldn't be hard feelings. They would meet. At least a few times.

This was for the best.

Mirajane said this was for the best and…

Mirajane…

The woman who wanted him out of his daughter's life from the very beginning, so she could keep her all to herself, who went to great lengths to hide everything from him, to keep him from the girl, was now telling him that he should take his wife and move far away and he was somehow listening to her.

Fucking demon.

That's what the fuck she was, Mirajane Strauss.

Fuck.

Fuck.

He got angry then, as well as still a bit woozy, as the train bustled down the tracks and Laxus clenched his jaw as tightly as his fists.

All that shit she said. About how it would be better for Aura. How it would be better for him. For Tasha. How she was just thinking of them. And oh, hell, that bit about the Thunder Legion. Yeah, right. Mirajane had made it very clear that she wanted nothing to do with them, at least as far as involvement with her daughter went, and oh, man, it was rich, when he thought about it now, far away from the woman and her tricky ways.

That's what Mirajane was.

Tricky.

And you know what?

So was fucking Tasha.

He was handling shit. His shit. He was stepping up to the plate and figuring it all out. Maybe not the way that Tasha or Mirajane wanted him to, but he had a plan. A purpose. He let everyone know that he had a kid and planned to stick around some, just enough, and that was that. It was Tasha that started making rules and Mirajane that had her regulations. Not him.

They fucked it all up.

Them.

If they had just let him do his own thing, but no. No. They both had to tell him what to do. Tell him how to live. Tell him how to interact with his own damn daughter.

Because that's what Aura was.

His.

She was his daughter.

And now Mirajane had him marching off, to leave her, and Tasha had him so twisted up over what it meant, to be involved in her life, that he didn't know what to do. About any of it. It felt like he was making a thousand different decisions all at once that canceled one another out, but instead of committing to just one, any one, he kept chickening out at the last moment. Doubting himself.

This all had him doubting himself.

He felt so empowered, when he was banging on Mirajane's front door, that first time. Confronting what he'd been running from for so long. But then they ruined that. The two of them. All under the pretense of either being better than him or trying to make him better.

Yeah? Better? Mira was such a better person than him that she was willingly going to let her kid grow up without a fucking father? Even though he'd yet to do anything egregious? She was willing to never even give him the chance. Went as far as to make herself the victim in the whole thing. Mirajane was so caught up in her own damn hurt, about the loss of her own damn parents, that she had no idea how horrible, actually, it was to deprive her daughter from even getting that chance.

And maybe he didn't want to be a better person. Maybe Tasha wasn't worth being a better person for. And was she really motivated for the right reasons? Huh? Or was she like Mira, all caught up in her own stupid childhood shit and just spewing it out at him? Trying in vain to fix her own problems? But she couldn't fix her problems because they had nothing to do with him and his situation. Her stupid shit of a father was never going to love her and, hey, maybe Laxus might one day love Aura, maybe not, but if he did or didn't, it would have no bearing on Tasha. At all. That's why it didn't make her feel any better, when it was all going swimmingly. Because he had nothing to do with her discomfort. And neither did Aura.

He wanted to leave both of them. Not his daughter. He wanted to leave Mira and her head games and Tasha and her insistence that he be a better person than he was already fucking trying to be. Because he was. Being a better person. Even before all the Aura stuff.

When he met Tasha and started feeling all those...things that Mirajane had filled his head with, about how great it would be, if he could just find someone to complete him, Laxus tried it. Being better. Changing. He felt changed and different and lighter and happier.

For a time.

But now it all felt forever changed and different and how could they get back to normal by running? Even if it faded, it was still there. The thoughts. And if Tasha was just projecting, then she'd always be projecting, and he was never going to feel not guilty, even just a little bit, and what the fuck was he supposed to do?

Honestly?

What?

It didn't matter who he listened to. Either one of them. There was no solution where he came out feeling like he did the right thing. It was more than just being ripped in two. Forced to choose sides. No. It was somehow worse than that. He wasn't being asked to pick a side; he was being given unviable, meaningless options from two people who were only hoping to serve themselves.

There was no former antecedent, no story from his past, a memory or situation that could guide him through this. Allusions and illusions were equally meaningless and he was lost in the dark alone. No. No one else was going to figure this out for him. No one else could. Neither in his past nor his present.

If Laxus was going to come to a decision, it had to be by himself. For himself. Tasha was so afraid of him turning on her, becoming that other person that Mirajane apparently frightened her over, that she forgot one key element; he was still that person. Even in her half-imagined dillusions, he just wasn't that person towards her.

But oh, he could be.

Things were about self-preservation now. And these women were driving him crazy. Gramps wasn't helping. Neither was the Thunder Legion. No. It was time to get away from them. All of them. For awhile.

Tasha wasn't around, when he got back home, and maybe that was for the best, anyways. The long ride back to the house had dissuaded any of the fanciful, running off and starting anew that Mirajane had tried to muddle his thoughts with and he was left with a strong desire to be by himself.

Honestly, he was probably gonna get pretty fucking drunk and pass out. Repeat. For a few days. Eventually, Freed would show up and set him on the right track, but at the moment, ti was just as good an outlet for his sudden intense desire to run away, far away, from fucking everything, as anything else was.

He tripped over it, on his way to the kitchen. His bag. Still left there, in the middle of the fucking floor, and Laxus growled some, lifting it up to go throw it somewhere, anywhere. But it was when he shook it that he felt it. The added weight.

Frowning some, he didn't throw the bag from him and instead started up the stairs. Instead of going to his bedroom though, he went to push open the one that Tasha had deemed they'd use for his daughter, Aura, and it felt surreal still, all of it did, and he wanted to hate her. So badly. Not Tasha. Or Mira. But Aura. He thought it would be easier that way. He already didn't want her. Not really. And if he could just hate her, could just hate the very sight of her, the thought of her as much as he fucking tried, then it wouldn't have even been an issue. There would have been no weight. Not in his chest, nor in his bag as, slowly, he opened it there, in the extra room, what was supposed to be her room, and pulled it out.

He'd gotten it before he spoke with Evergreen. When he still thought that he was going to stop in on her and the Strausses. He always brought her back something, always, and Mirajane was harping on him that he shouldn't bring her candy so much or toys and, well, the only other thing he could think of to bring a kid was a book.

It was a nice and thick one, full of pictures and short stories. Like something his mother would read to him, when she was still able to read to him. And sometimes...well, maybe only a few times, Ivan would as well. He liked it better, when his father did it, because Ivan used to not be such an asshole, such a drunk, such a power hungry psycho. There were moments in there where, maybe, if he'd just been given more help, he wouldn't have completely fallen over to the dark side.

Maybe.

And…

And he'd read to him. From the books. Just a few times. But he'd always go all out, with the voices and Laxus just thought that maybe…

He sat on the floor of the room then, Laxus did, right down there, slowly sinking as his thoughts fell as well, deeper in on themselves. As he pulled the book from the back, he just held it there, in his hands, staring at the depiction of some sort of fairy tale on the cover. A knight stood in all his valiant armor, sword drawn and bright eyes peeking out from his visor, ready to slay the humongous, blue dragon that stood before him, wings spread and fire leaping from his mouth, just over the top of the warrior's helm.

Bickslow would have liked to read her that one. Laxus bet.

"Fuck."

As he shut his eyes, Laxus didn't pass out. Not from intoxication or exhaustion. No. He just sat there, miserably, with his back against the closed bedroom door, the child's book in his hands, defeated. Not by some powerful spell or a wicked darkness.

No.

By his own self-pity and loathing. Was this what he was now? Was this what women did to you? Fuck 'em. Both of 'em. Getting him all confused. Turned around.

When he'd always known what he had to do.

He couldn't be the father to Aura that Tasha wanted him to be. But he couldn't just turn his back on everything, like Mirajane was begging of him. IT was a messand not one that he was necessarily looking forward to seeing his way through, but no, running just wasn't an option. Not anymore.

Not for a father.

He would never be Ivan.

He'd never be nothing like Gramps was, all loving and helpful. He couldn't be what Mirajane had re-imagined her father to be, an idol who did no wrong. Fuck, he probably couldn't even be steady or reliable. Had already missed all her early milestones and more than likely would be on the road for the rest. She was never gonna wanna sit around with him and talk about her life. Tell him about her day. She'd never proudly tell anyone that her father was Laxus Dreyar, from Fairy Tail, because there was nothing for her to be proud of, because all of the stories, all the heroics and pizzazz that went along with wizardry were the exact reason he was never around. That she didn't see him. Hardly knew him.

And that was fucked.

He knew it was fucked.

But…

He'd never try to hurt her. He never wanted to. And he'd do what he could, even if it was just a little, to make sure that she turned out a lot better than him. Anything, but a self-loathing asshole with a failing marriage that just went around putting babies int eh first loon that requested it (well, not the first).

It felt like a lifetime ago, that he and Mirajane had… And honestly? Looking back on it? Everything felt so serious then, but now, it felt as if they'd treated the whole thing as a joke. But wasn't that how all of life was? You get ten steps removed from a slightly altered version of yourself and immediately hate every single thing you see.

Maybe it wouldn't do her any good. Having him around. When he was around. For her to be a Dreyar, instead of a Strauss. For her to know first hand that her father was a fuck up with anger issues and a lot of pent up trauma that he never rightly addressed.

But it couldn't do her any worse.

His body hated the train ride the next morning, but Laxus forced himself to get through it. To just get there. Back to Magnolia.

It was time to do things his way. Maybe he was a shitty person and maybe he wasn't doing right by his daughter. Maybe he was the bad guy in all of this and he should just run away. But it didn't matter. Not one bit. No. Laxus was doing things his way now.

How it should have been from the start.

Lisanna was the one with Aura that day, sitting around the front yard with the little girl, picking flowers from the looks of it. She tensed up, the second that she saw him, and even Aura seemed a bit shocked to see him.

Not because of his attitude the other day either.

Rather, when her mother fetched her once more from the neighbors, she was all ready for her treat from the slayer, but he was nowhere to be found. Of course, she questioned this, but Mirajane just looked rather sad as, softly, she informed her of something.

"I don't think," she told her, "that Laxus will be around much anymore."

And it wasn't in a victorious way. A hope fulfilled. Like Laxus thought. Because Mira didn't want this. Not completely. But if the alternative was some man who openly stated he didn't want her daughter, thought that he was better off without her then…

Then who needed Laxus?

Not them.

They never had.

Everything was fine before he showed up that day. Banging on the door. Each time. No. If they were alone again, if it went back to just being the two of them, great. And, considering it wasn't this way, not truly, that she had her siblings and friends, even better. Who had room for him?

Not them.

But they'd have to make room it seemed, as Lisanna wasn't fast enough, to catch Aura's arm as, shocked or not, she skipped right over to her father as he stopped in front of their house, looking a bit sheepish in his approach.

"Hi," she greeted, stopping in front of him as well, blinking happily at him, all forgiven for being so mean, it seemed like, yesterday. "Laxus."

The man nodded some as he gripped it, in his hands, as he had the entire ride over. Her present. Bending down so they could stare one another in the eyes, he held it out then, the three-year-old struggling a bit with its weight.

"This," he said as Lisanna came over as well, glaring down at him as he was certain her sister had not neglected a single detail this time, "is a book of stories. You don't already have it, do you?"

"Nope!" She should know. After all, Aura knew every single book on the little shelf in her room. She made Uncle Elf read each and everyone before nap time, every time he babysat, in hopes that he'd take so long, they'd have to skip right over nap time! She never made it all the way through though, before conking out, to find out if this was a solid plan or not. "A dragon!"

It took Laxus a moment, to recognize the final word. She slurred it a bit, but seemed impressed all the same as she stared in awe.

"Ow! Aura, why did you-"

"Sorry, Laxus." She'd dropped the book, with no warning, right down to his foot. But this wasn't without cause though. As she fell to the ground, back on her butt, she only moved to pull the book closer and open it. She wanted to find the page with the dragon on it. He looked so pretty and bright blue! Her favorite. "Got hurt?"

"No! But-"

"Laxus." Lisanna was finished observing it seemed. As she crossed her arms over her chest, she said, "Mirajane told me-"

"Yeah, well, I don't care about it anymore. Lisanna. What Mira says. You say. Freed. Ever. Gramps. Tasha." He ignored the throbbing in his big toe as his face darkened some, still standing there, his daughter on the ground between them, oohing and awing at all the pictures. "I'm selfish, you know? An asshole. A selfish asshole."

"One that better stop cursing in front of-"

"I," Laxus told her as he jerked a thumb towards his chest then, "do what I want. Understand? And I want to give my daughter a book. So I came and did that. And when I wanna come by, and read her a story from it, I will. And when I want to take her out, to go buy a toy she actually likes? I'll do that too. I'm done playing games. With all of you. I'm Laxus Dreyar. I don't take shit from nobody. You forget?"

But Lisanna just narrowed his eyes and she wasn't so sure what to make of him. Especially since Mirajane seemed so sure, that morning when she spoke to her, that he would be long gone.

"We'll see," was all Lisanna could offer, "what Mirajane says."

"You can see whatever you want." And he reached down then, to pat the head of the little girl. Aura giggled up at him, but only quickly, because she had to find that dragon page. "But I'm going to do what I want. Always. Tell your sister that, huh?"

And as he walked away, Aura called out goodbye to him, even waved, but Laxus didn't look over his shoulder. Didn't call back. No. His head was too high now and, once more, he felt empowered and embolden.

Whatever happened, happened. Good or bad. But if he was going to lose his marriage and his daughter, then it would be on his own terms.


End file.
